Unfortunately my work no longer takes me within reach of London, otherwise  I would very much like to make a visit back to the Bengal Cuisine.  Armed with the knowledge gleaned from this forum over the past year I think it would be interesting to see if some ideas could be brought together and confirmed through such a visit?

It's the restaurant revelations that seem to push things on a notch, so I wonder if there is anyone out there who would consider doing one of these lessons? With a bit of thought  (or discussion on here) beforehand on "tactics" of what to ask,  I think some  useful information could be gotten out of the nice people down Brick Lane.

Is there anyone in that neck of the woods who might be up for it?

I've posted a couple of times before on this because I can't seem to get my head around the technique for recovering oil.

I made a base at the weekend that more or less followed the Bruce E recipe. I used about 400 mil of oil. At the end of cooking the base I let it rest and did have a thin covering of oil across the top. However this layer was only a few mm thick and proved difficult to skim off. I tried to using a wooden spatula and then a spoon, but end up with about 40% base 60% oil. I then added about 3tbsp of this mixture to my final dish but there was no way of recovering any oil from this dish. Obviously I'm still doing something wrong though I do tend to end up with quite thick sauces in the final dish so I wonder if the oil gets lost in suspensions due to this viscosity?

Would anyone be able to photograph and post the important steps of this process. It will hopefully help this numpty out!

Many thanks

I went out over the bank holiday with friends and the following dishes were ordered:

chilli garlic chicken
chicken jalfrezi
chicken pathia
chicken madras.

As usual I sampled a bit of everyones and cam to the conclusion that all were remarkably similar. Presumably the base ssauce was the same in each, but id guess that also the final dish was basically the same spcies as well, which suprosed me a little. From the "basic" madras each times...

a few slices of onion and chillies, and a couple of cubes of to make the jalfrezi,
the same plus some visible slices of garlic were added for the chilli garlic,
and for the pathia just some sugar and lemon juice was added.

The same happened last night at a different restaurant in that the pathia and the jalfrezi were remarkably similar in both appearance and to be fair, in taste also.


This leads to the question of how much variety do you think there should be in these medium-hot dishes? I dont think it was that 'good' a BIR we went to on either occasion.? Can arrive at a definitive view of what the differences in taste and texture should be between each of these dishes?

I stumbled across an article on the net from an online newspaper for Stroud. It was a reporter who went for a curry lesson at somewhere called the Balti Nailsworth. I'm not sure of the age of the report though. Checking out the BIR's website it does appear they still do lessons, but charge 40 quid a go.

It's only just up the M5 for me so I've emailed them to check the details and am awaiting a reply. If any of you live close enough to Gloucestershire you might want to give it a go?

I'll reply back  if I get any news.

www.baltinailsworth.com

I was in an airport lounge the other day and I had a plateful of chinese food. I'm not sure what the dish was but it was chicken in a midly spiced sauce with noodles - something similar to a Sezchuan (excuse spelling).

Now while it looked and tasted totally different to a curry, there was an underlying element to the taste that I think was very similar to 'the taste' in a BIR curyy.? As chinese food of this type is loaded with MSG I wonder if this is something that should be looked into? It kind of makes sense if the missing ingredient used? by the trade but not by joe public is a flavour enhancer as opposed to something thats a natural ingredient, and would also explain why it is not readily divulged by BIR chefs as an ingredient. I also wonder if the use of chicken stock jelly is a more natual means to a similar end result?

I plan to experiment with this next week sometime, but if anyone tries it some more first then please give me/us a shout with your results.

Following on from the earlier threads I agree with the general sentiment that the missing taste is in the base sauce, but at the same time I don't understand the parameters of the problem - if that makes sense.

To my mind the missing taste is not something subtle, it's a marked unctous depth to the sauce as though an igredient is missing altogther. Would everyone agree on this? It's basically all there apart from this one missing piece?

So - to restate the obvious - what could it be?

An ingredient we aren't aware of?
or a correct method to cooking the ingredients that we havent got right?

Assuming the latter. Everytime I've made a base sauce it looked increasingly more correct in appearance and texture, but I've assumed that I must have bodged the garlic/ginger browning process. Can Pete or Dylan (I can't remember who posted on this) confirm that if you nail the garlic/ginger browning you get that taste?

On more than one occasion I've probably underdone it, and on others maybe just overdone it in the base sauce. When overdone the galric/ginger has still been brown but started to go plastic-y.  I'm wondering though if browning the garlic or galric/ginger combo to just the right stage can be soley responsible for this missing taste, as it's quite a significant tast difference imo?

Sorry if this goes over old ground but I'm puzzled on this. Are we saying that at a certain fleeting point you get an explosion of flavour from garlic ginger that permeates through into the sauce and gives that distinct taste?  If so is there an agreement on quanities required say for making a 2 litre batch of sauce.

Can anyone post a photo of the galric/ginger when it's at this stage. That would probably help me.

cheers

Okay, I?ve? finally had time to knock something together. I won?t repeat the thing Pete mentioned in his earlier review so assume that? things? not mentioned remain the same.

I met up with an old school mate that id not seen for a while for the demo. The restaurant was quiet and we had a pint and went over the menu. The choice was a little disappointing. My regular dish is a CTP, but as I?d just tried Mark J?s excellent recipe a few days earlier (btw,? i think? Dylans should also produce a very good result? - I plan to revisit this as I went astray first time)?anyway, I was planning to go for something different. In the end I went for a CT Jalfrezi, and my mate, curious by the title, went for a CT Balti Jalfrezi.

Once dressed up in chefs whites and hat, we went down to the kitchen. As I?d had to get over from Heathrow we?d had to start the lesson later so we omitted the cooking of the base sauce (in hindsight it might have been useful to see if they?d given the same recipe as to Pete). The base sauce itself was indeed thin. It looked very similar to me to what some of? the recipes on here produce i.e. a thin smooth soup like yellow opaque sauce with about a half inch layer of dark red oil on top. The chef said he?d made that batch that morning.

First up he got the pilau rice on the go.? Into a big casserole sized pot.

1.5 ladles of ghee (call it four dessert spoons - 4DSP).
Then 3 DSP of onion
1 TSP salt

After 2 mins of frying in went the pre-washed rice
Then 3 bay leaves (3 three veined variety)
4 cloves
2 green Cardomons
Cassia Bark/Cinnamon Stick (couple of inches)
And something that I thought he called ?Gultri?. Not sure what it was but it was a round flat spice about the size of a two pence piece. Any ideas what this was?

This all went in together and then was fried for 2-3 mins.

He then added water to an inch over the rice and he said ?boiled? for 5 mins with the lid on. I?d actually say simmered as the heat was quite low.

Next up was Sag Baji. All the following cooked in? 8 inch pans.

I DSP of chopped garlic (not chopped as fine as you might think it would need to be).
4 DSP of veg oil
2 DSP onion
? TSP of salt
A pinch of ?metti potti? that what his answer sounded like when I asked. ?Id got distracted here and didn?t get a good look. It was a green herb. Anyone any ideas?
1 TSP tumeric
5 DSP spinach (cooked and dried).

All cooked on high heat, stirred and shaken vigourously for a minute or so.

Then 1 Ladle of curry gravy
1 TSP fresh coriander
1 TSP quartered toms

Simmer for 2 mins. The taken off heat.

Next up Bombay Aloo.

1 Ladle oil
1 TSO onion
1 TSP of toms paste (from ?family size? tin)
1 TSP salt
1 TSP curry powder
Pre-cooked potatoes
A couple of piece of sliced tom
1 Ladle of curry gravy
Fresh coriander
Cook on high heat for 2 mins. Shake and stir vigourously. Take off heat.

Then CT Jalfrezi

1 Ladle of ghee/veg oil. Not sure of ratio ? presume 50/50

1 DSP onion
1 DSP tom paste
1 TSP salt
1 TSP curry powder
1 TSP chilli powder
A portion of green chillis - chopped lengthways (seeds left in).
1 ladle of curry gravy
Pre cooked onion
Pre cooked Chicken Tikka
Pre cooked pepper
A couple of quartered toms
Fresh Coriander

Total time for all these ingredient to go in was 3 mins max (on high heat).

He then simmered on medium heat for another few mins added 2 more ladles of curry gravy when it got a little dry.

Next came the Balti Jalfrezi.

Basically it was the same recipe except for

1 DSP of Pataks Balti paste put in instead of the tom paste!

This might seem a bit of a cheat. However, when served, one was darker than the other and as they came in different dishes and with a different garnish (one had additional coriander, one had strands of red onion) you would expect them to taste a fair bit different. I suppose that?s half the trick?

There you go. No startling revelations but it may help to confirm a few things already worked out.

Overall I?d say that the Bengal Cuisine was very nice, but just very average curry house fare in fairness. I?d guess that at somewhere of higher quality, you might get slight more complexity/sophistication to the ingredients, and dish variations.

I would recommend that anyone goes on this. We had loads of food and with two free pints of kingfisher each thrown in, it's hard to grumble at the cost.


Anything I may have missed out or been a bit vague on, give me a shout, and I?ll try to expand on.

Cheers

Phil.
?
ps - If anyone can get a bonafide restaurant korma recipe that would be great. It's the only curry my missus will eat and I can't get close to the resturant variety with the recipes tried to date.
? ?

I?m sure many people have a favourite curry house that in their view is the ?best they?ve ever had? but I wonder if there is such a thing as a premier league of curry houses. Or whether one could (unofficially be built on here).

To explain.

My usual is a Chicken Tikka Pathia and if I go to a new restaurant then this is what I?d usually go for first, and usually go for most of the time. I?ve lived in a few places around the UK and would say that most CTK?s I?ve had, would, on a scale of 1 to 10 rate, quite naturally, around a 5.? On this scale I would say that the lowest I?ve had is a three and the highest an 8. Most are very similar, around a 5, which in my book makes a very pleasant meal. As I really like restaurants curries a five is pretty nice rather than just ?average?.? There are plenty of 6?s and a few 7?s too.? An 8+ is/would be fantastic.

The single exception that reached the heights of 8+ for me,? came when I was taken by some work colleagues to a place called the Bilash Tandoori in Wolverhampton about 18 months ago. I?m glad it was on expenses as it wasn?t that cheap, as curries go. Around ?10 to ?16 for a main course dish if I remember correctly. The difference about this place? is that I think it is meant to be specific Bandgladeshi cuisine rather than your regular ?curry house? fare, hence there being none of the regular dishes on the menu. Instead I just plumped for one that sounded nice.

I went back three or four times in total and I have to say that on they are the three of four best Indian? meals that I?ve had? by quite a way. I like things hot-ish usually, but at the Bilash I found that there was a real depth of flavour to the dishes that you don?t get usually and no reference anywhere to heat ? almost as though it was the posh nosh equivalent of a regular curry.? Its hard to put a finger on exactly what made it so nice, but quite simply, for me, it is a notch above anywhere else I?ve been.

My question is whether anyone else has visited this place, and if so did you find the same thing, or is my high rating of the Bilash purely personal taste?


Further to this, are there any other places that people might be able to agree on the standout quality of the food. We?re talking 8+ only here. If I visit Manchester or Sheffield or Bradford or various parts of London, or wherever, are there any restaurants that can be identified as ?must visits?. For example, I've now lived in the south west for a couple of years and am yet to find anything past a six...maybe a seven...

I?m looking forward to your responses!

Cheers