I had "The Truth About Food" on in the background while I was working. The programme itself is pretty poor but they had a bit about super-tasters which peaked my interest. It seems that, on average, 25% of us are super-tasters, i.e. they have more taste buds. The significance is that super-tasters perceive tastes more intensely.

This could explain why some people here believe that their curries have achieved the "taste", while others, the super-tasters, are left feeling dejected at not being able to get that taste with exactly the same recipe. There's a test you can do here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2880471.stm

If you do the test post your taste type here and also whether you believe you've cracked the curry "taste" we are looking for. Should be interesting.

YF

I'm not entirely sure if this is on topic or what? Anyway, has anyone tried any of the hundreds of Indian sweets? I don't mean ordinary BIR desserts like gulab jamun, I mean ones like these:  http://www.gulabrewri.com/index.htm

Can anyone recommend which ones to try as I've never had any. Any book recommendations for making your own?

YF

Jalfrezi (for use with base chicken, lamb, vegetable or prawn).



A spicy hot dish with whole green chillies.? Hugely popular among my customers who like a real kick to their curries – plus, it’s very easy to make!

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

Quarter tsp black pepper

2 tsp Kushi Spice (see book page 23)? (use 3 tsp Kushi Spice if you’re using prawns as a base meat)

1 1/2 tsp chilli powder (remember – it’s very hot, so vary this to your taste!)

A ladle of base “meat” (see book page 17)

A ladle of base sauce (see book page 15)

2 green chillies, split down the centre

Fresh coriander leaves to garnish



Fry the garlic and onion in a Balti bowl using the vegetable oil.

Once it’s golden brown, remove from the heat, and add the Kushi Spice, chilli powder and black pepper, stirring well so it doesn’t burn.

Return to the heat, adding the base meat and base sauce, stirring well.

Simmer, while adding the chillies, then garnish with fresh coriander leaves and serve.

I finally decided to get some vegetable ghee and I remembered there being a few discussions in the past, saying not to buy certain brands as they stink. So I tried to search for ghee, and while I've found what I want, what a faff it was. So I thought, wouldn't it have been much simpler if those posts recommending a particular product were in a separate section. It would have made my search that much easier and it would make this forum even more useful.

So here's two to start with:

Tesco brand Lime Pickle - Lovely stuff, superbly limey without being bitter and with nice sized, whole pieces of lime. Easily compares to Patak's, which is my favourite.

Sharwood's Plain Naans - I have not bought naans from a supermarket since I bought some a few years ago and found them like hard bread, really poor quality and nothing like a restaurant naan. So imagine my surprise when I decided to give these a go, actually only because they are 50% free at Tesco at the moment. The packet says sprinkle with water and grill, but I found that best results were achieved by liberally soaking the naan on both sides under a running tap. You then grill for a couple of minutes on either side.

Wow!, what a difference to what I remember of old. They were soft and slightly buttery. They compared favourably to an average naan from a restuarant in flavour and softness and are about half the size of a restaurant naan and so go well with a half portion of rice. Will probably be perfect once I have some ghee to butter them with...Very nice. Recommended.

Can the moderators ask stu to add this 'product review' section if enough people consider this a good idea please?

My god but it's a thin tome and the B&W pics are naff. The kushi spice mix is much more complicated than what we have been using. I'll get down to reading it properly now.

How do you think the restaurants pre-cook the spinach for dishes like murgh palak, palak paneer etc?

Do you think, or know, that any restaurants would use the tinned spinach?

I was going to have a go at making paneer so I need some muslin. Could I find any? Well no or I wouldn't be asking the question. Anyone know where it's sold?

http://www.menumagazine.co.uk/book/restauranthistory.html

I have been concentrating on this forum's posts so much that I have not been looking at the other forums I used to use. So for the first time for a couple of months I decided to look at the other forums.

I tried UKFDI on google:? http://groups.google.co.uk/group/uk.food+drink.indian?lnk=lr&hl=en
It seems to be getting only a few posts a month compared to lots per day a while ago

I tried the yahoo group 'curry':? http://groups.yahoo.com/group/curry/
It's had one post this year

I tried in2curry:? http://www.in2curry.co.uk/curry_chat/currychat.asp
and the last post is from Ray complaining about it being dead


Is it just coincidence that all these groups died when this one started?

I was just looking at the sample pages for the new book and I think we're not going to get any new methods or 'secrets' from it judging by this. Although the unknown factor, at least at this stage, is the Kushi spice mix which might make a difference but I doubt it. I think it's likely to be one of the best books for total beginners to the hobby though.

These are the pages, they are a bit lo-res but you can get the idea from them.

The originals are here http://www.kushibalti.co.uk/about.htm

I was wondering just how they manage to make so many small amounts of different curries like you get in a Thali. Some of the Thalis I have ordered have had seven different curries in them, how on earth do they make seven tiny amounts of curry like this all at the same time? Can they really have seven different pans on the go for this one order? I don't think so, so how must they do it?

Does anyone have these videos or have any other information on them?

As far as I know they are made by a chap called Robert breakwell (or Brakewell)

http://tinyurl.com/8ogrb

I just realised that the one thing missing from this forum is a restaurant review section. I would really like to see this as it would help me to know what's really going on in the Indian restaurants across the country. If the idea is taken up can I suggest that the admin, or whoever, provides a pro-forma review page that you just fill in the blanks on. I personally would prefer it this way to provide some standardisation for the reviews. But, also, I would specifically like sections like description of the curry, to include colour, thickness, known ingredients, guessed ingredients, heat etc. The list could be endless, but my motive is to see what the restaurants are really serving, down to the fine details that anyone who wants to copy it, and I assume that incldes most of this forum, would want to know.

In other words it has to be more than a 'we had three dishes , one was ok , one good but too hot' type of review and more of a ' the vindaloo was excellent, unusually there were whole spices in it, cardamom and cloves, it was quite runny consistency and the fresh red chillies made all the difference' type of review. Detail is what I would require if this is to work effectively.

I really think this could be of help to us all.

So there's my suggestion. Any thoughts?

I had Richard and Judy on as background noise and they did a piece on the world's biggest curry attempt at Preem restaurant on brick Lane. They succeeded with a vegetable curry weighing in at 5.1 tonnes! They froze some for Richard and Judy and they said it was really nice. Obviously this proves the theory that good curries can only be made in large quantities, so get your burners set up underneath your bath if you want that authentic restaurant taste?

Also on Saturday there was a short programme on about chefs' secrets and guess who was on there, none other than Mr Haydor the chef involved with the Balti book we are all waiting for. His tips were dissappointing though, one was to add whole lemon to a curry that has too much chilly and then remove it, apparently it takes some of the heat out and the other was to roast your spices to bring the flavour out.

If it stops us talking about that curmudgeon, Pat Chapman, what the hey!

http://www.kushibalti.co.uk/bookpromote.htm

Well I just got back from a Friday beer up. I cooked a standard curry, few spoons of curry base, some pre cooked chicken, some spices, all done at maximum heat in two minutes, literally. Spooned it onto my pre-cooked basmati, heated up in the microwave. It tastes and smells gorgoeus. But still not quite curry house gorgeous. There's definitely something to be said for fast, high heat cooking though!

My nose keeps following a curry smell, like in cartoons, and I ate? about twenty minutes ago.

Is this the missing smell?.. being beered up? :

When I make dhansak it is never as strongly lentil tasting as the curry house version, so I wondered if I was using the wrong type of lentil. I've tried masoor dhal and chana dhal but neither seem to work. If I taste them after they have been cooked on their own they don't have a very strong flavour. Anyone got any ideas?

I'm about to procure some veg ghee as I've never used it before and was wondering if those that have used it feel that it makes a significant difference to any of their curries?

Here's a link to the kit contents page of another 'restaurant style' curry kit. There's not much in it is there?

http://www.curry-kits.co.uk/What_is_a_curry_kit.html

http://www.gulshan-liverpool.com/Events.htm