bhamcurry - 

JalfreziT - glad you liked it! I do like Steve's recipes as well.

I really like tamarind sauce in my dhansaks. Like Maggi Tamarina. Just the right sweet/tart combination. No extra lemon or sugar required (to my palate).

Feast!

bhamcurry - that has been my experience as well. That's exactly why I don't think there's a secret. I think anyone with decent technique can take any of the recipes here and turn it into something they would be proud of.

JalfreziT - thank you.

mickyp - I think the problem there was the "over" reaction.

ChewyTikka - thank you for following me. I have had curry in the UK many times - some better than others and for many more years (decades) than I care to admit. I've eaten predominantly in London but also Bath, Birmingham and Glasgow that I can recall off the top of my head. I have also eaten quite a lot of Indian in India and am, in fact, half Bengali myself so have been eating curry since I was about three years old.

The restaurant curry here in Canada is about the same as in the UK. There are some (few) restaurants in Ottawa that maintain a higher standard than I have enjoyed in the UK and some that do not. Pretty much as you would expect.

It's also pretty similar in the US. I would say that while certain specific dishes don't come across the pond, most are pretty well represented here. Some notable exceptions - I have never seen a garlic chilli chicken or achari here.

Since I started cooking BIR in earnest I have largely been disappointed with what I have eaten in the UK. I think I can do better as I'm sure most people who have been at it a while here can.

I am here under a different avatar because I couldn't get the system to send me a password reset email so I created a new account. I would happily go back to my previous avatar (or stick with this one).

That is the chemistry and certainly enlightening for those that want to go deep. For the less scientifically inclined what is important is that it happens and it is important to a lot of cooking.

Simpler view - https://theweek.com/articles/609542/maillard-reaction-most-important-cooking-technique-youve-never-heard

Thank you for the welcoming words.

What I have seen feeds my belief that technique is what matters. The restaurants have the same ingredients available to anyone who visits an Indian grocer. It is a largely level playing field from what I can tell.

Bloom the spices in oil. That is the same whether it's restaurant or homestyle. Make sure they are cooked enough to lose the "raw" taste. Wet ingredients go in after.

There are usually two different bases. One generic and one for creamy dishes like butter chicken. I don't much care for butter chicken so I've never bothered trying to figure out the creamy base.

Tamarind paste is your friend. So is amchoor powder. Delicately sour.

Vindaloo tends to be paste and not spice based. I've seen this more than once. That one took me forever to get through my thick head.

The only thing that dictates the juiciness of chicken (or any protein that isn't taken to the stage of collagen breakdown) is the internal temperature. That's not specific to Indian. It's food science. There is no such thing as sealing in the juices. That is also food science. What you do get from browning protein (or onions) is the Maillard reaction. You can expand the error bars by brining.

Indian food is fundamentally about browning onions. This is also Maillard. The closer you can get to this in the "caramelization" stage the better your curries will taste. You need to balance evaporation against this goal of course.

That's about all I know. No secret ingredients or techniques to offer I am afraid...

Thanks mickyp! And thank you for pointing me here.

Hi all.

Mickyp mentioned he had found glebekitchen from a post here so I thought I'd come and visit. Noble ox and Garp - thank you for the kind words. Porchy - I am glad my video helped you. I run glebekitchen as a hobby just to get people to come back into the kitchen and cook from scratch so you made my day.

Do you remember where you saw me say "creator". As surmised I meant crater and autocorrect has seemingly made me look the fool. I've been looking but there are a lot of posts to sift through.

BTW - I make no claim to have cracked any "BIR secret". I honestly don't actually believe it exists. I've talked my way into a couple restaurant kitchens and I have been cooking a very long time. My way is not the right way. It's just what I have managed to come up with over the years and it seems to work for me.

Cheers,

Romain