Greetings!

Looking forward to hearing more about your culinary experiences in India. I've always wanted to visit India and haven't done it yet, I will soon!

I've made something like this before but I don't have any set recipe for it, I think I just made it up on the fly as another experimental dish!

I would approach it in the same way as any other BIR style dish, but you'll probably have to experiment with it until you get it right to your taste and/or what you or your friend can remember it tasting like in a restaurant.

I would cook the lentils as you've described but I'd probably also part precook the potatoes in turmeric and a little salt too.

Then you can assemble the dish as you would any other BIR style dish. Heat the oil, pinch of asafoetida, fry for 10 seconds or so, tsp of g/g paste, fry till golden, fry spices, probably mix powder, chilli powder, salt, pinch or so of Garam, ladle of base reduced, perhaps another ladle of base, pinch of fenugreek leaves, perhaps a tsp of tamarind concentrate if you have any, in go potatoes, reduce mixture to coat, perhaps some chopped green chilli's and mix in your lentils. Simmer till potatoes are done, add chopped coriander.

You could make it more complex by adding a tempering to your lentils before you add them. In a tablespoon of oil, fry some coriander seeds, cumin seeds, fenugreek seeds, couple of whole red chilli's and when fragrant, set aside to cool. Empty into a pestle and mortar and grind to a paste, add and stir this into your lentils before adding to your main dish.

Experiment and have fun!

Quote from: diverdil on April 01, 2013, 12:57 PM
...are both these brands good exceptable curry making materials or are there better ones i should be using?

A lot comes down to how you define 'better'. As CH rightly points out, freshness in spices is key, you won't get good results using stale spices regardless of which brand you buy. So that' the first criteria really.

Beyond freshness, a lot comes down to precisely which spice you're referring to. In my experience some spice qualities can vary across brands, whilst some don't. Turmeric for example is pretty constant across all the different brands, I've noticed no discernible difference in Turmeric from different manufacturers, so I tend to just buy whichever is cheapest. There's also so little difference in the price between a big bag and a small bag I generally just get a big bag and throw it away when it goes stale.

Cumin and Coriander on the other hand play a very important role in shaping the overall flavours in BIR/Indian cookery so freshness and quality is important. For ground, I generally stick to 100g bags of Rajah for these as I've found Rajah to be fairly consistent in terms of freshness and quality.

Ground Paprika and Chilli powder can vary quite significantly across different brands in terms of taste, flavour, heat and quality and the only real way of selecting these is to simply try different brands and find out which ones you like.

Quote from: uclown2002 on April 01, 2013, 01:40 PMHow long do folk keep their ground spices assuming correctly stored before ditching them?

I throw them away when they've gone stale or lost their pungency

It's hard to put an exact time frame on that really. As CH rightly points out ground spices can and will go stale fairly quickly after the packet is opened regardless of how well they're stored. Stored correctly they'll simply stay fresh longer than if not stored correctly.

The only real way of knowing is to observe the smell from the container when you open it, if you get a nice whiff of what the spice should smell like, it should still be fresh, if you have to stick your nose right inside the container to smell anything at all, it's a pretty sure sign the spice has lost its pungency. Obviously some spices are naturally more pungent than others so you need to factor that in.

If you're still not sure, fry up some g/g paste and some chopped onions, fry a tsp of spice in the mix, let it cool and taste it. You'll soon know.

Quote from: diverdil on March 31, 2013, 11:28 PM
so nothing to do before i start?

If it came with a wax protective coating, you need to get rid of that first by scrubbing it in soapy water. Then I'd suggest doing a search on youtube for wok seasoning, there's loads of good videos there that will show you the best way to season it.

I'd suggest using a high smoke point oil such as peanut/groundnut oil to season it with because you need fairly high temperatures to season properly.

Quote from: DalPuri on March 31, 2013, 11:25 PM
Or maybe the iron pans do act the same as ali because they cant be fully seasoned due to acidic ingredients?   

They can be fully seasoned, specially if you build up the seasoned coating over time. The acidity in tomatoes will simply try and break down the seasoned surface but as long as they're cleaned properly (you shouldn't really wash seasoned pans in detergent, which affects the coating) and recoated with oil the seasoned coating shouldn't break down.

Just don't cook spinach in an unseasoned iron pan, the oxalic acid in it turns the spinach black!

John

You sound a lot like me actually. I'm quite sensitive to salt levels having slowly reduced my salt intake down over time and frequently find standard recipes have too much salt in them so I tend to adjust them down out of habit. This is why I put 1/4 - 1/2 tsp of salt because it really does depend on your own salt tolerance level. A 1/4 tsp is enough for me, for many people 1/2 tsp won't be enough!

I frequently get people complaining my cooking doesn't have enough salt in!

I have grown chilli's in the past but to be honest I just find buying pre-dried ones to be more convenient, but I have been meaning to get back to chilli growing again when I get time.

Achieving that smoky flavour is the subject of much debate on this forum and I've found that with some dishes you can achieve it, but many you can't for some strange reason. I've found with spinach and dhal dishes you can achieve it with the right technique.

Quote from: DalPuri on March 31, 2013, 11:06 PMSome people will say it has to be ali, but an iron pan is fine

Not sure I entirely agree with you there, it's not that important, but a bare non-stick aluminium pan or stainless steel one for that matter will behave slightly differently to a seasoned wok or iron one.

The seasoning effectively coats the iron with a non stick surface, an aluminium pan does not have a non stick surface to it which is why the sauce sticks to the bottom of the pan and caramelises. That's not to say it won't caramelise in a non stick pan, the effect just won't be quite the same.

Quote from: DalPuri on March 31, 2013, 08:25 PMGaram Masala should really be a personal blend that suits the individual.

I agree.

I think people get too hung up on GM, no-one says you have to use the unknown ingredient ones that come out of a packet. Make up your own to your own personal tastes, if you like aniseed put some of those in, if you like star anise, use some of those, if you like fennel, use some of that etc.

Surely this is the beauty of cooking at home, playing with and experimenting with different flavours?

Hi John

By all means add extra garlic, just be careful you don't burn it as once that happens you just get a bitter taste into the dish you can't get rid of. So you might need to experiment a little as to exactly when you introduce your garlic.

I grind my own chilli powders from whole chillies so it's not easy to equate them across to commercial brands but I'd say they were around medium heat. Try half a level teaspoon of medium Chilli powder to start with. I also like the balance of dried ground red chillies with fresh green ones, but you can reduce the fresh green ones if you're worried about it being too hot.

I generally tend to cook about Madras strength main dishes which usually use about 1 - 1.5 tsp's of chilli powder in them so about 1/2 tsp in the Saag Bhaji is about right for me. I find the Saag dish to be about the same hotness as you'd expect in a restaurant.

In my younger days I used to eat hotter dishes in restaurants but these days I'm more interested in flavour, I find too much heat can over-power dishes somewhat.

Try and keep some over and put it in the fridge overnight. The next day have a good sniff of the container its in, you should get a lovely smell of smokiness coming out of it.

Let me know how you get on.