Thanks Chinois, both you and Bobby have increased my understanding of MSG a great deal!

Thanks Bobby, that makes sense.

In the the continuing quest for curry perfection, I tried adding a few drops of Maggi seasoning (dark liquid stuff, small bottle, local supermarket), to my 'standard' chicken madras tonight.  The stuff must be really concentrated because only a fewdrops seemed to be noticable.

It contains (amongst opther things) MSG and wheat extracts (presumably other glutamates).

As I understand it, MSG is a flavour enhancer; it's supposed to be the "5th taste", after sweet, salt, sour and bitter.  This extra taste being known as "umami" for some reason!

I have to say it, didn't seem to make a positive contribution to the result.  A few days back I tried putting a couple of drops in 100ml or so of water to get an idea of the flavour.  I appreciate that at this point you may be thinking that that's irrelevant, it's how it enhances the other flavours that matters.  I guess I was just interested to know!  Soy sauce is supposed to enhance food in a similar manner, and apart from loads of salt, that too contains wheat products and presumably glutamates.  The Maggi flavour does seem very slighty remenicent of soy to me.  Both 'her-in-doors' and I thought it added a slight soy-like note that clashed with the other flavours.

I've heard that MSG is used in Chinese restaurants quite a lot, in rice dishes for example.  I wonder what the received wisdom is on what sort dishes and flavours are enhanced by MSG, and what arn't??

It would be useful to know if anyone has any ideas?

I understand that MSG isn't very fashionable at present, part of that has to do with with the fact that 'monosodium glutamate' sounds more like a laboratory reagent than a foodstuff, but then most food products could ultimately be discribed in that manner!  I may be wrong, but I can't imagine that small amounts, very occasionally eaten, could be any more harmful than, for example, the 3 or so tbs of oil that goes into a typical curry !

Anyhow ,if anyone has any ideas on what type of dish MSG works best in I love to know!  My local Asian shop sells great big bags of MSG, possibly to restaurants for all I know!

Can any recommend a good make?

Thanks Parker21, I'll give it a go!

I agree with Jeera on that one, the dishes are not quite right, for the most part but the base is very good.  In fact the base I make now is inpired by both hers and Bruce Edwards'.

In my opinion, her best recipie is the Bhuna, which tastes nothing like a bhuna I've ever had, but is was an almost perfect reproduction of a jalfrazi I used to eat in a BIR in Knowle near Solihull, West Mids, when I worked up there for a while.  It had the right 'spicy sausage' smell.  I found the secret was deffinately to use her version of garam masala.

Interestingly, there are more similarities between her stuff and the Ashoka stuff, that everyone's raving about (thanks Panpot), than may appear at first sight!  Both do not seem to use a spice mix, but contain mainly turmeric and cumin.  The also both contain 'garam' type spices; in the KD case, in the garam masala; and in the Ashoka case, in the bunjara (cinamon, bay etc).  I have not tried Ashoka yet, but I suspect the advantages of the Asoka method lie not so much in the base, but in the bunjarra.  Apart from that I don't think there is a huge difference between the ingredients of the two.  KD base is simple, no carrot or pepper, this is also similar to Ashoka if I remember correctly.  Cumin goes into the Ashoka base, but into the final dishes in KD, apart from these slight differences of at what stage ingredients are added, the constituants are broadly the same......

I keep meaning to revisit KD Bhuna, but every time 'her-in-doors' and I feel like a curry, we tend to go for my -tried & tested- version of madras, which I'm reasonably happy with, just being lazy I guess!

Looks fantastic! ;D

Panpot, where is Curryqueens recipe, I can't see it in the 'Pilau Rice' sections of 'Starters and Side Dishes'?

I wonder if it's made form just the dried, powdered seeds, and none of the rest!  That would explain the heat...

Just wondered if anyone has tried COOKING pilau in a microwave, as opposed to reheating?

I feeling particularly lazy today and am considering frying some typical pilau spices (cinamon stick, cloves bay etc)in a tbs or 2 of oil/gee, mixing it with washed uncooked basmati rice followed by the requesite quantity of water, then cooking in the microwave, as per manufatureres instructions.

I've cooked plain rice this way before with reasonable (not fantastic) results.

Any thoughts? Apart from 'don't be so lazy'!