Quote from: randomxchef on May 15, 2013, 09:40 PM
I do apologies, i am genuinely in agreement with you! I hope I'm not coming across as disingenuous, i am new here after all, and really not trying to make waves, but rather be a help where i can!

You're not really helping to be honest, you're obfuscating and confusing the issues by going off in irrelevant tangents.

You've come out with some pretty bizarre comments so far on this which have done nothing but confuse.

Let's get back to basics.

We're talking about BIR style curries here or the process of replicating BIR style dishes at home. We're not talking about fancy dancy French haute cuisine. We're not talking about Veloute soups and/or sauces.

BIR style dishes use a lot of spicing as their primary flavouring components, those spice flavours are contained within the spice essential oils. Those spice essential oils are carried through the dishes cooked with them by OIL.

That is why these type dishes use fairly large quantities of oil in them.

I appreciate you're new here and I don't mean to be harsh or unkind or put you off posting, but it's important to understand we're talking specifically about BIR style cookery here.

Whether you accept oil is needed or not is entirely your prerogative, but you will not produce BIR style and tasting dishes without using it in the quantities as suggested by most of the recipes on the site.

Most of these recipes are tried, tested and proven to work.

I just can't see how it can be particularly helpful to wander along and post comments such as -

"Personally, i don't believe oil carries flavor any better than any other liquid, ..."

"Any flavor you add to a dish- any spices will always have that flavor/oil within them to start with, the oil is just a means to distribute that flavor and those natural oils (and also protect them as they cook!). All i meant was it is important to put thought into the ingredients you use, and through experience learn how to sculpt your results to your specification!"

"I agree, but it depends on the ingredient in question! again, it boils down to refining the dish, applying experience to come to an agreeable conclusion, and learning how to treat each ingredient as an individual component in its own right!"

That's just doing a very good job of confusing the issues even further than they're confused already!

There's a variety of different ways you can do this, which you go for depends on your situation and what flavours you like.

One of the most common ways of producing varying heat dishes from the same curry (particularly useful if you have children) is to cook the curry without any chilli powder - when it's ready, spoon out the portions for the children (or whoever) and then add chilli powder to the remainder and cook it in for 10-15 minutes. As long as the curry has oil in it, the flavour and the heat from the chilli powder will cook into the dish.

You can add sliced/chopped green finger chilli's towards the end to spice it up (I do this a lot as I like the flavour of green chilli's) or as you suggest yourself you can add a hot sauce towards the end of cooking as well.

One of the most recent dishes I cooked had a couple of teaspoons of hot sauce added into the diluted tomato puree mixture added at the start of cooking.

If you're getting a watery residue (which isn't separated oil) then it sounds like you're not reducing down the gravy enough. Try finishing off the cooking with a high-ish heat fast simmer and see if you can reduce out the remaining water content.

Oil separation is usually a pretty good indicator that most of the water content has gone.

Hi Hezzie

Be careful about leaving out the oil, it's an important component!

I'll be interested to hear how you get on without the oil in the base.

Quote from: Phil [Chaa006] on May 12, 2013, 10:57 PMWould that be "All four of your statements are rubbish", or is it just one of them with which you disagree Chris, and if the latter, which ?

Don't confuse him, he's confused enough.

Quote from: Simplysandy on May 12, 2013, 03:13 PMWhy is there so much oil in the base gravy?

It's a very good question.

In my opinion it's because oil is the primary flavour carrier for spice essential oils to dissolve into. Not much point putting spices into a base sauce if there's no carrier for them or anything for them to dissolve into.

This is why (in my opinion) BIR style curry nearly always uses a lot of oil and why the resultant takeaway dishes are often swimming in it.

BIR style cookery and dishes aren't exactly the the most healthy out there. But it's because of all that oil the dishes taste so yummy!

Quote from: goncalo on May 11, 2013, 12:37 PM

Quote from: Axe on May 11, 2013, 11:53 AM
wfo Jerry?

wide fired oven, I think

Wood Fired Oven.

Quote from: Axe on May 10, 2013, 11:06 PMAha, it's not duck its Dak and refers to the mail train in which the fish was transported. Contrary to belief, it is not a banned substance in the UK.

I've tried some of that stuff - it's rank!

And I agree (3 in one day, mark it on the calendar) that it's not banned in the UK - just banned from being sold in Restaurants due to erm, health reasons?

Quote from: Axe on May 10, 2013, 11:58 PMCan I ask you to re-read my comment, I think you'll find we are on the same track.

Um, um, um yeah okay I agree!

Quote from: Simplysandy on May 10, 2013, 11:51 PM
Dare I say it's sounding like the the dreadful book 50 shades of grey? Lol I'm loving this site, it is fraught with spicy fights, isn't that what a spicy site should be?

I'm afraid I can't comment on 50 shades as I've not read that book and have avoided it like the plague, I'm not really into 'populist' books really. I am however an avid reader and read a very wide variety of books and am currently reading two excellent books by Niall Ferguson - The Ascent of Money and Empire, both highly recommended.

I hope you're not using the first part of my username to suggest I am the main cause of these fights

But yes, healthy but passionate debate and discussion stimulates progress and knowledge, it's just a shame so many sensitive souls interpret that as something more sinister.

My instinct tells me you'll fit in here quite well, you appear to possess that wild eyed, mad as a box of frogs type attitude you need to survive!