Quote from: Garp on December 19, 2014, 06:59 PM

Quote from: macferret on December 18, 2014, 10:01 PM
- gravy in too soon: you need to COOK those spices before you deglaze

I don't think this is necessarily true, MacF.

One of my favourite recipes on here is Stephen's Punjabi Masala, in which the base is added first, reduced, then spices added, then reduced further, then more base added, etc etc.

There are more ways than one to achieve the same end result

Very true. I have seen chefs start with the gravy too, but I have never tried it.  Maybe I should have said "I need to cook the spices...." Using the method I follow, undercooking the spices makes for a poor sauce.

I agree that oily korma is not nice. I have seen it arrive swimming in oil, but this seems to have passed out of fashion with UK chefs, probably because since veg oil became pegged to the price of crude oil they can't afford to get through so much of it.

Our korma seems to swallow up amazing amounts of oil and ghee without it splitting out and sitting on top. probably due to the almond powder and coconut. I have never worked out how many calories there are in a portion. It must run to 4 figures.  But people - especially kids and ladies of a certain age - seem to like it. So while I have watched chefs cook a perfectly nice-looking korma in a dry pan, I don't want to mess with the recipe.

I have always thought of korma as the odd one out in the BIR repertoire: it is one of the most expensive sauces to prepare; it is always a joy to see on the ticket because it's so quick and easy to cook; and it is often ordered by people who don't actually like curry!

I know this thread has spun away from topic more than once, but the question of "when to add gravy and how much" is important.  Much easier to show in a video, but as I am using words, here are some common errors that we see when we run BIR courses:

- gravy in too soon: you need to COOK those spices before you deglaze
- too much gravy at deglaze: you need just enough to stop the spices from burning. Pan flashes are a good sign at this stage.
- cold gravy: NOOOOO!!!
- second ladle of gravy is too soon: the sauce needs to be split and frying before you add the second ladle of gravy. Some crusting is good - and putting the gravy around the edge of the pan helps to loosen the caramelized crusty stuff.
- above all, make sure the gravy is runny. It should be like a thin soup.

[This advice is good for most sauces except korma (depending on how you cook it). We cook korma in the following sequence: hot pan; seasoned salt; oil; white sugar; ground almonds; gravy; coconut milk powder; more gravy; condensed milk; cream; protein; let it crust; more gravy if needed; ghee.]

Thanks MushroomMike. Good to have a knowledgeable fellow like yourself on board. I love morels but they aren't found around here (SW France), although I think there are a lot further South towards the Spanish border. We had a Canadian friend who used to send us a huge bag of them every year. She hailed from Czechoslovakia and used to go into the pine forest with a wheel barrow. No-one else there knew or cared what they were. She would dry them, bag them and send them back to her family in Europe.
We get a lot of ceps here, but you have to be before dawn as the competition is stiff. The funny thing is that the French don't rate the common field mushroom at all - we can pick as much of them as we like.

I like Daveyham's pub analogy. I don't know about you, but my bookmarks bar is bristling with sites and if I tried to visit them all regularly I would turn into vegetable matter. I'm more likely to visit sites that are busy, and RCR has suffered a recent downturn in that respect. I think the monthly password reset had a lot to do with it, but that has been fixed and it now rotates on a twice-yearly basis, so time will tell whether the active membership picks up.
Personally, I visit the sites for different reasons: I view this site as a trail-blazing R&D lab where there is a lot of passion and opinion; RCR has more of a reference function. I can't comment about the rights and wrongs of who should be publishing what because I just don't know.
In my opinion both sites are good.
Any website will eventually die if it isn't monetized. This site and RCR employ different models, but surely that just gives us more choice? We can choose to browse for free with ads, or pay a sub. No-one is forced to belong to either site, after all.
Cheers,
Tim

That didn't take long - cheers Rich. It has a better look and feel and it's faster than the old one. Also no pervy ads....
Strangely enough, RCR is back too. I told you there was a connection

Wow - whoppers. Here in France we can wander into a local pharmacy to check what we've picked: all pharmacists are qualified mycologists or whatever it's called. As I am not a fan of renal failure I always take mushrooms that I have picked to be checked, and they find it hilarious: to them it would be like taking a dog and cat to the vet and asking them to confirm which is which.  But every year you read the stories....

Pirate Bay is off air too. What's going on?

Quote from: Madrasandy on December 05, 2014, 06:04 AM
Quite a big variation there, 3 is half us much again as 2

Fair point. It's tablespoons that cause the problem because a lot of people use dessertspoon to mean tablespoon. I should have been more accurate and said:

1 chef's spoon = 3 dessertspoons = 2 tablespoons.

I don't think chef's spoon is an actual measure is it? Correct me if I'm wrong. It's a useful measure when descriing BIR because curry chefs tend to use just one large cooking spoon for everything - diced onion, garlic/ginger mix, spices, etc.

Not your fault Ghoulie.  The last time someone gave me some meat it was a frozen leg of their own lamb. When I defrosted it a month later to do a nice Sunday roast, it turned out to be not just "well hung" but completely rotten. They must have had a freezer break down. I had to do the kids fish fingers with roast potatoes and yorkshire puddings!
Beware anyone bringing gifts of meat.....