Good evening curry lovers. I was just reading a tempting recipe for Pakora and it reminded me of something I've been wondering about for a while.

I have two little 1 inch plastic jars of food colouring that I use sparingly (I use them mostly when I'm making curry / drinking beer at the same time if you know what I mean :)

Basically my questions are these:

a) When used appropriately, how much do you think that the use of food colouring enhances the enjoyment of a meal?

and

b) How bad for your health is it?

Quote from: Curry King on November 30, 2007, 06:33 PM
Hope you don't mind Rob I resized your pics for easier viewing in the thread.

Looks spot on BTW 

cK

Thanks very much CK. Lol, that'll save people being subjected to my 4 megapixel numbers! Oh well, now I know for future!

One of the best results i've had to date. I'm surpised that with this entrie recipe there was no garram masala but it had a great BIR taste. I still ground my spices fresh though

Thanks very much, that's cleared that up. I should really have searched  :-[

Delicious. Here's my attempt - just after blending, after darking and finished.

Hey guys,

I took some pictures of my curry attempt last night and uploaded them to the gallery but seem larger than I would like. Also in my post on CK's bhuna, the images are so large it looks pretty bad.

Is it best to resize before upload and if so what resolution works best. Alternatively couldn't you implement the image resizing functionality offered by php to do this for you upon uploading?

Thanks for your help, Rob.

Here are some images of my attempt. I don't really know the rules/guidelines on image posting, so please pm me if you think this is excesive and I will keep only 1.

Hey CK, tried your Lamb Bhuna with the base sauce posted by admin. It was excellent. I have the pictures which I will post later, all the best, Rob.

What do the different positions mean, i.e trainee chef, head chef, spice god etc reflect? I assume it's for cooking experience and quality posting content? Also what are the stars on some members there for? Thanks, Rob.

Quote from: Curry King on February 28, 2007, 11:07 AM
Hi George,

I agree but it's a similar situation to the olive oil debate, it's better for you and it doesn't make that much difference but if your trying to duplicate something it does.  I've only tried freshly ground spices a few times and the resulting currys were not what I am looking for but that was a few years ago so might be worth trying again.

cK

I have to disagree! Using olive oil is adding an entirely new ingredient/flavour. I think that when it comes to curry ingredients, fresher is better! It's not like your adding an alien flavour to the dish by grinding fresh. Furthermore, the turnover at a BIR vs a home kitchen is likely to mean that the pre ground spices they use are fresh by comparison to those found in the kitchen cupboard.

I just have sad images of faded, half empty Schwartz bottles emerging from the dusty spice rack in the rarely-opened cupboard. I imagine you would just have to add more...

Also, even if your whole spices have been kicking around for a while, once ground, they will still be better than pre ground that has been lying for the same amount of time.

I think that not grinding fresh is a step backwards in the quest for the BIR flavour.