Quote from: Peripatetic Phil on August 30, 2022, 03:12 PM
I think I have everything archived.  Have a look at https://www.dropbox.com/s/vz4ftbhjv3f9iwa/BE.zip and tell me if anything appears missing.
--
** Phil.

Thanks Phil, I know I have these docs on one of 100 data sticks or discs. I will work through them now once home off holiday.

I thought of giving the old BIR base sauce method a go again. It must be at least 30 years since I tried KD and also Pat Chapmans* methods with little consistent success.
I remember having obtained the Bruce Edwards recipes a while back and I understood the results were pretty good.
Having a search through this site I managed to find the base sauce but the thread (below) with lists of supplementary information has the majority of the attachments missing. Are these gone for good or can they be recovered?

https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=108.msg364#msg364

* It was Pat Chapmans recent death that has rekindled my interest and I struggle these days to find the time to cook a lot of traditional Indian food so I thought a weekend invested in a base sauce and precooked meat may help me regain my regular curry fix.

I used to stop in inn the way to work to buy congee or Bahn Mi (?) for breakfast, but since lockdown they now only open for a few hours during he lunch period and I have only had rice, veg and meat for lunch. Never tried one of their curries though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Chapman

Sad to see that Pat Chapman, founder of the curry club recently passed away.

Pat took a lot of stick from a lot of quarters but I don't think he should be knocked as he did an awful lot to further the "Curry Cause" in the days before the widespread use of the internet.
I joined the curry club, founded in 1982, and had many of their periodical magazines which would be of great interest to reread today, just to see how things have changed. Unfortunately an ex wife binned them all at her earliest opportunity.

Another reply on the same site.

Madhav Kushwaha
Chef At his own KitchenAuthor has 247 answers and 1.6M answer views3y
Well as a foodie I had this question for a long time in my mind. I have always tried cooking everything I ever ate at any restaurant by myself. But the taste was never even nearby to the restaurant dishes.

So, when I came back Nepal I found out one of my friends was in the restaurant business. Luckily, he invited me to his restaurant for the lunch and the food was damn tasty and I decided to ask him the question which had been running in my mind for a long time. He told me about some of the techniques he uses at his restaurant to enhance the taste of the food.

Here are the few reasons which he told me and some acquired by myself that make a restaurant curry dishes or any other dishes taste better than homemade.

British Thermal Unit (BTU) of Stove:
The gas stove which we use at home has BTU of somewhere around 10000 to maximum 20000 and the food gets cooked slowly.

While the gas stove at the restaurant has BTU ranging from 50000 to 150000 which emerges high heat and foods get cooked fast and sooner. At high heat, the spices taste gets enhanced.

2. Combination of Spices

Whenever we cook any curry or any other dishes at home, most of the time we use the same regular spices.

But at the restaurant, they use the combination of spices to enhance the flavor of the dishes. Also, they have some unique combination of spices for the dishes which rarely anyone tries at home.

3. Use of Taste Enhancers

It is a fact which cannot be denied by any restaurant owner that they don't use it. Almost every restaurant uses taste enhancers to enhance the taste of the dishes they serve you. Some common taste enhancers are Monosodium Glutamate and Acid's Sodium salt which makes the taste of any dish finger licking tasty.

It is one of the major factors the dishes at a restaurant tastes better than homemade dishes.

4. They are cooked by Professionals

Last but not least, the dishes we eat at the restaurant are prepared by the professionals and we all will agree to this.

Whatever the ingredient or taste enhancer one might use, but there comes a big difference in anything done by professional and a normal person.

The professional chefs are trained to prepare the dishes at a restaurant in a specific manner with the exact amount of ingredients. They know very well when to keep the ingredients and how to cook them.

Hence, it brings a big difference in the food cooked at the restaurant than at home.

These were some reasons which I found out of my curiosity in the process of learning to cook and try different restaurant dishes at home...

Hope you like it...

I saw this on https://www.quora.com/Why-do-restaurant-curry-dishes-taste-better-than-home-made-curry and thought you guys may find it interesting.

Sunil Godithi; Ex-CEO Three Bowl Diners Pvt Ltd.Author has 450 answers and 629.3K answer viewsUpdated 3y
Wow!!! So many answers...

My background: worked in Mexican, American, indian and New Orleans style restaurants. Owned, managed and consulted. Did some high end catering too.

Let's start with the myth's.

Myth #1: Secret ingredients... no such thing. Every restaurant will use their own standardized recipe for consistency. Before standardizing them, a lot of taste testing and experimentation happens to get some uniqueness and optimum taste. That doesn't mean any great secrets. It's usually quantity differences more than unique ingredients. Or substitutions like cream for yogurt or vice versa.

Myth #2: High heat. This only speeds up the final assembly point in Indian cuisine. This makes a huge difference in Chinese cuisine. BUT HEAT CONTROL is a total different subject. One cannot be a good cook without mastering all the elements of heat control.

Myth #3: great great grandma's recipe. This is 99% of the time a marketing gimmick. Even if it was someone's grand mother's recipe, it still needs to be deconstructed for easy on the fly service demands of a restaurant. So it's no longer the same recipe.

Myth #4: MSG. Yes it has become a standard and overused ingredient in Indian restaurants in last 20 years or so. But I tasted great food at Indian restaurants 35 years back when it was used only in indo-Chinese cuisine. I actually think the taste profile has deteriorated after it became popular and especially cos it's overused.

Myth #5: Other ingredients like soda / bicarbonate etc. Yes, they are used sometimes in restaurants... it's not so much for taste but speeding up the cooking process or presentation. If done correctly, customers should not be able to tell the difference.

Now the reality.

#1: Technique, every aspect is handled by professionals, who probably spent more than a few years learning proper techniques. From selection of ingredients to cutting, to timing, to prepping and to heat control. Usually supervised by professionals who have multi decade experience under their belt. Cooking is a craft. Presentation part is the art. You can usually see this difference between any craftsman and weekend dabbler. I'm sure everyone here knows of a grandmother or aunt who can cook one curry or some special amazing dish. That comes from years and years of doing the same thing (and learning to control natural variables like vegetables, spices and meats).

#2 Slow and long cooking: most of the base sauces are cooked for multiple hours to get the depth and richness. cooking onions till they literally melt into a gravy consistency makes a huge difference. Same goes for tomatoes. Ask any Italian, they'll tell you a good marinara sauce requires at least a couple of hours of cooking to making those tomato flavor pop. Makni sauce is just indian spicy version of marinara if you break it down to its essence. Same goes tough meats too.

#3 Temperature : one of major difference between eating at home vs a restaurant is almost a mantra in restaurants. "A la minute". The food has to be on the customers table within a minute of cook putting it up on the pass thru counter. When you taste hot food hot, perception is more favourable. At home, your chicken curry sits in the hot box for an hour or two before you eat it. That's another reason why a take out curry doesn't taste as good as while eating at a restaurant. Another often repeated mantra in restaurants is "hot food hot and cold food cold". You get the point.

#4: Fats, Heat, Marinations, Nuts (this actually should be part of technique section above. But I made it separate cos lots of people mentioned some of these points in their answers)....

Fats: Yes, restaurants use more oil or butter or various fats in their cooking. Fat is the primary career of spices used in Indian cooking. One of basic technique of getting max flavor from spices is called "Blooming", that is, sauteeing spices in oil for few seconds. Oil is also one of fundamental heat transfer mechanisms in cooking besides steaming (heat from vapor to ingredient), boiling (liquid mostly water or stock to ingredient), grilling/baking (air to ingredient.. direct vs indirect versions). Using the right amount of oil and right technique (sauté, deep fry, poach etc) for cooking ingredients and right heat etc is what a cook learns... TO GET THE BEST FLAVOR from what ever he/she is cooking.

Everyone's seen the 2 finger deep oil on top of curries, right? Well, there is history for that phenomenon. In the old days of no refrigeration, this was one of the health practices. That layer of oil protected the meat curry from spoiling. AND the cooking techniques evolved to bring the best taste with that much of oil... so for best taste in Indian food, you need to cook in lots of oil... THAT DOESNT MEAN YOU END UP EATING ALL THAT OIL. Historically, cooks would either drain of the excess oil to use in other ways or the serving style (ladles dug deep into a pot and pulled up full with curry such a way that there is no space for oil on top) used to naturally drain off the oil. Other personal pet peeve is fear of deep frying. If done correctly, this method results in less oil in your dish than if you pan fry same dish.

Heat: control of heat is the second most difficult thing to teach a new cook. When to cook at high and when to simmer etc. lots of answers here about how restaurants use high heat burners and that's the secret... what they don't talk about how much and how vigorously the chef stirs or shakes the pan and ingredients... restaurants have high heat cos they have to finish dish in under 15 mins or so. But all the shaking and stirring you see is how the cook manages the heat.

Marinations: we hear lots of talk about how long restaurants marinate their meats or kebabs. And how every cookbook author suggests marinating over night and stuff. Here's the secret. Only super popular selling items are marinated for long duration in restaurants. In catering orders, yes most cooks marinate for a while. But in restaurants, maybe tandoori chicken is marinated but all the other 100 variety of kebabs are not marinated for 36 hours in super secret sauces. The technique used is called double marination. First marinade is basically simple essential ingredients like salt, and ginger garlic. Then when the specific order comes, they mix that specific spices in a little yogurt and marinate the meat for maybe 1 hr (for fast moving items) to 0 hrs (for rare or slow moving items).

There is related technique for par cooking meats so they can be cooked within that 15–20 min window. example mutton, pressure cook with salt, pepper and ginger garlic. And keep ready. Brining is another such technique. If this part of prep is done correctly, you get juicy, falling off the bone type of chicken or lamb in your curries. If done incorrectly, we get dry and cardboardy meat pcs.

Nuts: restaurants use a variety of thickening agents. Like ground pastes of cashews, almonds, and other nuts. Slurries of besan, maida, corn flour etc. That is not a secret cos traditional Indian food techniques include them. Most home cooks use them too. Again difference could be the skill of the cook.

Last point is, time factor. Most home cooks skip few key steps to save time and then wonder why the dish doesn't taste as good.

To pull together all the points above, let's take a look at making of Hyderabadi biryani.

Point 1: Professionals NEVER ever cook without "Birista" , that is , deep fried onions. Most home cooks skip this step or don't fry the onions the right way.

Point 2: professionals slightly vary their supporting ingredients based on meat they are using. Ex: meat tenderizer and more mint for lamb. Chicken may get a little extra dose of fat whether in form of oil, butter, koya etc. maybe rose water for chicken but kewra water for mutton. Maybe saunf powder in chicken vs extra powdered cardamom powder for mutton... things like that.

Point 3: make sure there is enough liquid in the pan. Pros add ghee mixed with hot water, milk with saffron etc on top of rice before sealing. Getting the right quantity to add is the skill.

Point 4: pros add whole lot more chopped mint and coriander leaves. Usually this 2 times what normal home cook adds.

Point 5: once sealed, cook on high heat till steam and pressure develops before starting the "dum". And then the experience kicks in to know for how long to do the dum. Generally pros handle large quantities most of the time, so even they screw up when you ask them to cook small quantity. Most common mistake by home cooks I see are not cooking till full steam generation and then "dum" for proper time

Quote from: Robbo141 on August 25, 2022, 03:49 PM
I've eaten at Chai Pani. Very good street food. It was only 2.5 hours away from my home in North Carolina. They have a dish of deep fried okra that is amazing.

An interesting article...

Robbo

I found a recipe a few years ago where you slice your okra and leave it to dry out overnight then spice it and fry it. It is the one I use most times I do okra as part of a curry fest.

North Indian roti vs. South Indian: What's the difference? By Wendy Leigh: 24.08.22

With 1.4 billion people living in India, per Pew Research Center, dozens of bread varieties touch the heartstrings of Indians and compete for prominence as the country's favorite. Many of the top contenders come in the form of unleavened flatbreads, generally falling under the comprehensive umbrella of "roti," according to The Times of India. Roti can vary by region, with different types of flour, cooking methods, and added ingredients such as spices and vegetables used in the recipes.

Wheat flour forms the basis of many roti bread recipes, but some regions incorporate other flour varieties. New Delhi Television explains roti can also be made with rice flour, ragi millets, lentil flour, and even bajra -- a grain Healthline describes is made from seeds of pearl millet plants.

Roti incarnations parade across home kitchens, cafes, and street-food stands on a daily basis, forming the heart of many Indian dinner recipes. Here's a look at some of the most commonly eaten roti breads in North and South India.

Roti Breads from North India

By far, the most noted roti bread in North India is a flatbread recipe known as chapati,a doughy disk created from whole wheat four. The name comes from the Hindi word meaning "to slap," a reference to the way chefs prepare chapati: by slapping dough between two hands before frying it on a thin, flat tawa pan (per Michelin Guide).

Hailing from Rajasthan, missi roti holds similarities to chapati, with the addition of spices such as cumin, turmeric, and red chili powder. Poori, or Puri, roti breads cooked crispy golden-brown, are puffier pieces of bread that have been rolled and deep fried, explains New Delhi Television. In the Punjabi region of North India, makki roti also sizzles on tawa pans. This type of roti uses corn flour or maize and is eaten alongside a spicy curry known as sarson ka saag (via The Times of India).

South Indian Breads

South Indian cuisine tends to lean toward fresh fruits, vegetables, and seafood rather than meat and dairy products, explains Sukhi's Indian Cuisine. Most dishes are spicy, utilizing concoctions like sambar powder and cardamom, nutmeg, cinnamon, and mustard seeds. This culinary mentality stretches to roti bread recipes as well.

Akki roti from the Karnataka region of southwestern India takes its name from akki, the word meaning rice. These roti renditions feature rice flour infused with grated vegetables and spices, per The Times of India. Akki roti also goes by the name of pathiri roti in the South Indian state of Kerala. Another well-loved bread is ragi roti, which differs from other flatbreads in that it comes stuffed with chilies, onions, and vegetables.

Though other types of roti bread abound, here's a final nod to a local South Indian favorite: Originating in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and possibly Chennai, parotta roti, a flatbread made with maida flour, complements breakfast and lunch meals, especially when served with dal lentil curries. Because of a higher-than-normal percentage of gluten, this roti is doughier and smoother than other bread types, lending to modern Indian cuisine and dishes with sweetened condensed milk.

The Curry Trap: How a continent's worth of food got mashed into one word. By Anmol Irfan: 24.08.2022. Mother Jones Magazine

In August 2021, Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten penned a piece that mentioned his profound dislike for Indian food, which according to him was defined by a single spice: "curry." The response was immediate and fierce; Mindy Kaling questioned the article's point while Top Chef's Padma Lakshmi called it ignorant and racist. The same summer, BuzzFeed reposted a video by food vlogger Chaheti Bansal calling for the term "Indian curry" to be canceled altogether. "There's a saying that the food in India changes every 100 km," Bansal asserted, "and yet we're still using this umbrella term popularized by white people who couldn't be bothered to learn the actual names of our dishes."

Of course, as Weingarten was schooled, "curry" is not a single spice: While the curry leaf is used as an ingredient in some South Asian dishes, curry powder is a varying mixture of spices, one that is rarely found in Indian households. According to Top Chef contestant and cooking teacher Amirah Islam, the word "curry" may have derived from the Tamil word "kari," which means spiced sauce. When the Portuguese invaded India in the 15th century, they began using the word "carree" to describe broths poured over rice.

Two centuries later, British colonizers began reworking local dishes to their palates and referring to all of them as curries. Indian merchants capitalized on the situation by commercializing curry powder and selling it to the British, who began using it in their versions of Indian dishes. Later, curry became linked to harmful stereotypes, like the term "curry-muncher."

"Curry is a term that became popularized via colonialism," says Anita Mannur, author of    Culinary Fictions: Food in South Asian Diasporic Culture and a professor of English at Miami University of Ohio. "If colonialism is a system of power, part of that power comes from the ability to name, simplify, and take away complexity. So shorthands enter lexicons—and curry is one of those."

Since the early 1900s, Punjabi people have made up a large share of South Asian immigrants into the United States, and North Indian cuisine—or Mughlai cuisine, as it is known in India—has dominated the South Asian food scene in the West. And it's a particular form of Mughlai food, heavy on spiced sauces often referred to by Americans as curries, that has been further assimilated to Western tastes, says Sana Javeri Kadri, who was raised in Mumbai and now lives in the Bay Area, and founded a spice company called Diaspora Co. This adaptation of tastes flattens our understanding of the diversity of South Asian food, Javeri Kadri argues—"it does everybody a disservice."

As chef and activist Preeti Mistry sees it, referring to all Indian food as curry is "a way to devalue and collapse, as if somehow our food is a monolith. It comes from not understanding and not wanting to." Mistry, whose family hails from the Indian state of Gujarat, ran a restaurant in Oakland called Juhu Beach Club until 2018, serving up Indian street food and homestyle specialties. Once, a chef on a food tour didn't want to stop at Juhu because "they didn't like curry," Mistry recalls. "I took offense because this was someone who knew me and my food, who was still choosing to dumb it down like this."

Given curry's speckled past and reductive associations, should the term be phased out entirely? Islam, the cooking teacher, thinks we should move away from it. She advises chefs and home cooks to instead "take up space—tell your stories. It's imperative to talk about where specific culinary techniques and cuisines originate to give credit and respect to the cultures they derive from." With her upcoming The Diaspora Cookbook, Javeri Kadri hopes to introduce readers to hyperlocal cuisines from places like the hills of Kerala to help them understand the nuances of tastes from across the subcontinent.

There are signs that the moniker may be falling out of favor anyway. "One way we already see this happening is in the growing presence of South Indian food in Indian restaurants," Mannur says. In June, the James Beard Foundation named Chai Pani, an Asheville, North Carolina, restaurant serving Indian street food, its Outstanding Restaurant, essentially deeming it the best restaurant in America. The menu features dishes like the multitextured bhel puri chaat, and uttapam studded with corn and peas—and not a single dish labeled "curry" to be found.

Please don't shoot the messenger but in the introduction to a small Balti cookbook Pat Chapman wrote for Sainsburys in 1994, he states that

"Cooking curry amongst people of all ages is on the increase. And they are demanding more and more sophistication from their curry restaurants and their food suppliers. Every now and then a new idea appears on the culinary scene and spreads like wildfire. This happened in the 1970s with Tandoori cooking, which, though in itself an ancient technique, had not been a feature of curry house menus before. A couple of decades having passed, it was time for a new development to emerge on the curry scene; Balti Is that new development.

Balti is a type of curry. Any ingredient or combination of ingredients can be used. The distinctive feature about balti is the way it is cooked, and the pan it is cooked and served in, A two handled wok like steel dish, the Balti pan is also known in India as a karahi. Balti is aromatic, fresh, spicy and very tasty (and only hot if you make it so). Cooking balti is (or should be) quick and easy. You'll need to spend a couple of hours making a few basic preparations every now and again, but once you've done this you'll be able to produce stir-fry Balti curries as easily as Chinese dishes.

The first Balti house opened in the Sparkbrook area of Birmingham as early as 1976. The original establishment still supplies cheap and cheerful transport-cafe-style balti food. Portions are huge and cutlery is only dispensed on demand (You are welcome to use a chapati or naan bread to scoop up the balti curry). The next 10 years saw several copycat balti houses opening up: today, Birmingham has well over 100 houses and Balti restaurants are opening all over the country.

Balti is fun and it doesn't take itself too seriously. Restaurants have names like Balti Bizarre  and I am the King of Balti; there are at least three called Balti Towers!

I've had many a chat with many Balti house owners, each of whom is unshiftable about the origins of Balti. One is convinced it was Afghanistan, another, Iran, whilst others are adamant that it was India, or the Punjab, or Karachi or Kashmir. Best opinion of all was from a Bangladeshi who owns a balti house in Cardiff. In a fruity Brummie accent he categorically told me it was Birmingham which invented Balti. He didn't quite go as far as to claim it for himself, but he assured me that anything else I'd heard to the contrary was quite untrue.

In fact, he is right and he's wrong. There is no doubt whatsoever that Birmingham brought Balti to the attention of the British nation. However, Balti's cooking origins go back rather further than Birmingham - to Pakistan. It is centuries old, from the most northern areas of Pakistan in a mountainous and little-known state called Baltistan. Here, on the border of Tibet and India, live a hardy people, who, over the centuries, have learned to live in an inhospitable climate. In their  traditional two-handled pan, the Balti pan, Balti people, with Tibetan ancestry and with Kashmiri spicing have created a unique cooking style. This style is now created with great charm and panache, in Balti houses all over the country."

So is a Balti a combination of the style, cooking utensil, and particular local herbs and spices from a remote corner of the world?