Quote from: Secret Santa on March 22, 2013, 09:03 PM
It's fairly easy to tell that most aren't all that much more powerful than my domestic 4.5kW and the ones that are are rarely used at full power.

And as I've said repeatedly in this thread, it's not about full power heat output, but constant heat.

The only major difference between what we do at home and what happens in a commercial BIR kitchen is the heat output of the burners. CA, Jerry, myself, Haldi have all done experiments on high output burners and we're all saying it makes a difference, that can't be discounted as being wrong, even though in your opinion it may not be the answer for you.

That may also not be the answer for a lot of people, which is rational given that not everyone is at the same level of ability. What I think is missing in my dishes may not be the same as what you think is missing and so on. There's no one size fit's all answer here for everyone. What works for one person may well not work for someone else.

This is an issue that seems to be cropping up a lot on here at the moment, the assumption is of course that everyone is at the same ability level, an assumption that in my opinion is clearly not correct.

And to just throw another observation into the mix to complicate things even more (which also goes to explain a number of opinions on this issue) is that not all BIR style dishes respond as well to being cooked on high output burners as others might.

I've found a Dhansask and Korma eg cook perfectly well on a domestic burner as a high output one whereas a Bhuna and Madras don't. Quite why that might be, I have no idea, but that's what I've found.

Sad to hear you've had to endure yet another disappointing meal in a restaurant but pleased that you're at least getting out and comparing commercial fare to your own home cooked and finding it compares favourably.

As home cooks of this style food I think we become hyper-critical of our own efforts in part because we don't have a wide variety of people tasting them and giving us feedback on them, so as cooks we tend to judge them ourselves, often harshly.

Whenever members here have cooked for other people, from what I've read, the feedback they receive seems to be pretty favourable, which tends to support the view that what we produce at home will, more often than not, match or better that produced by BIR restaurants.

I'm finding that myself. I used to use a pretty standard Chicken Madras as my benchmark dish to judge restaurants on and then Chicken Bhuna, but I find the standard offerings of these dishes to be so poor, I've moved to a Chicken Dhansak, which, in my opinion is a much easier dish to get right. Yet the last restaurant I visited about 3-4 weeks ago couldn't even get that right. It was bland, almost like a standard chicken curry with a few dollops of lentils in it, very disappointing.

Dhansak for me has quite complex underlying flavours, it's hot, sweet and sour with an overlay of smokiness and an almost unctuous unami savoury-ness to it. The one I cooked last night had all those characteristics and beat the restaurant one hands down and every which way.

I've said it before, I'll say it again, everything anyone needs to produce very good BIR style dishes that will compare very well with your average BIR restaurant are right here on this forum if you're prepared to look for them, adopt the methods and perfect them and use the right ingredients.

There are no secret ingredients and there are no secret methods. Yet there will always be someone, somewhere who thinks they have the secret and will try and profit from it. You know the old saying -

A fool and his money soon part.

I'm glad you're moving on in your BIR journey and getting the results equal to the efforts you're clearly putting in.

Quote from: Secret Santa on March 22, 2013, 06:26 PM
First, most BIRs are not cooking on 9kW burners.

Interesting that when I say it, it's ...nonsense, yet when Jerry says the same thing it's, you don't agree. 

So what Kw burners are they cooking on then and have you been round every one to check?

Quote from: h4ppy-chris on March 22, 2013, 10:42 AMHow does the Admin feel about my copyrighted material being shared on this forum?

Who says it's copyright? You? Are you an expert in this?

Firstly, generic ingredient lists are not copyrightable because they're not your original work. Eg. garlic, ginger paste, equal quantities or to a ratio of 60:40. Is this my/your original work or is it something generally known and widely and freely available in the public domain? Ergo, it can't be copyrighted by you or anyone else.

Secondly, the methodology of cooking the ingredients may be copyrightable depending on the degree of originality. If you're just lifting commonly known methodology from elsewhere and adjusting it slightly, it's not likely you would be able to claim copyright for it as the methodology would be commonly available free of copyright in the public domain.

Given the caveats above and assuming you could claim copyright on an original work, which wouldn't be certain, if someone were to reproduce one of your recipes and methodology for cooking the ingredients word for word without changing it in any way you may be able to exercise your right as copyright holder for that original work and stop it from being published and used without your permission.

But that's about the only right as copyright holder you would have and even then you'd have to go through a lengthy expensive legal process to enforce it.

If someone were to change the wording and/or express or interpret it in a different way, it ceases to be your original work and therefore copyrightable and becomes an original work of the originator.

If you're writing a book and intend to identify yourself as the original copyright holder, I strongly suggest you read up on this subject.

And yes, I do know something about this subject.

Annoying isn't it?

Quote from: Bengali Bob on March 21, 2013, 04:54 PMHerein lies the difference perhaps?  Whereas spiced oil alone may improve a dish, stock/spiced oil will transform the end result to a completely new level.

Rob

Could you please explain to me, exactly what you think the difference is between oil spooned off a cooked curry dish and your term stock/spiced oil and why one may improve a dish and the other transform the end result into a completely new level?

I'm not trying to be awkward here in any way, I genuinely want to understand the difference between why one is supposed to be so much more effective than the other when both in my mind appear to be produced in exactly the same way. You seem to be suggesting that somehow the meat flavours are infusing the oil, when as far as I understand it, it's the spice essential oils that infuse and flavour the oil.

It's that science v that's the way things are done kind of thing coming up again.

And baghar by the way from your original post, that your Bengali chef friend terms his method of producing this stock/spiced oil, is simply the word for the process of frying spices in oil, usually whole spices. But he seems to have adopted this name for this process.

Welcome!

It's nice to hear you're getting good results. I think the Zaal base is a good one and like you I made up a batch scaled down to try and also like you it did seem to come out quite thick. I think the answer is just to thin it down to what you think is the right consistency which should be quite runny and just cover a spoon but still run off it if you see what I mean.

It might be because of the scaling, but even still 4Kg of onions to 2L + 1L of Ahnkni doesn't seem to be the right ratio to me for the right consistency. That's 1.3Kg of onions per 1L of water.

The usual base I make is 600g to 1.6L of water which is 375g of onions per 1L of water, quite a big difference.

There's a section within Main Dishes that includes recipes for the ones you mention.

Quote from: Razor on March 21, 2013, 02:27 PMWhen ever I have spooned off excess oil from a curry, and used it on the next one, I believe that it most definitely adds more depth of flavour aswell as filling the room with that restaurant aroma!

Ray, me old fruit, where have you been hiding? I've missed that bit of banter we used to have! Hope all's well with you and family etc..

And yes I agree with you here.

Whenever I've used spooned off oil in another dish, a Saag bhaji in my example, which is a relatively simple dish and easy to compare with one without reused oil, I've noticed additional depth of flavour added, but it was subtle and certainly didn't transform the dish into something else.

So my conclusion is much the same as yours, it definitely adds an additional layer of flavour but, and it's a big but, it didn't do enough for me to warrant spending lots of time making up large batches of it.

I suspect that BIR's do this out of sheer expediency, practicality and without wishing to waste all that flavoursome oil. They scoop excess oil off a dish and sling it into the base sauce. Rinse and repeat that a few times and you have lots of additional flavour, they probably also add a new pot of base to that same pot.

It would be interesting to try this ourselves just to see the taste results.

Make up a batch of base, make a dish, skim off the oil, sling it in the pot of base, freeze the dish and number it No.1. Make another dish from the base, skim off the oil, sling it in the same pot of base and freeze the dish and number it No.2 and so on till you've used all the base up.

Then taste the results in time and see if there really is a difference between No.1 dish and No. 4 or 5 or whatever.

Quote from: h4ppy-chris on March 20, 2013, 11:57 PMYOU TELL US i shut you down on the oil separating.!

Did you?

Erm, yeah ok then!  :

Suck down a few more beers, you're not quite there yet

Quote from: Axe on March 20, 2013, 11:45 PMIndeed, very intrigued and will be looking into this. Tandoor dishes are really among my favourites.

From memory, it's been a while since I had any, it's a slightly more refined taste than standard chicken tikka/tandoori, it's not quite so full frontal, the flavours are more subtle.

It makes a very pleasant change. As you probably know by now, I love tasting new flavours

Quote from: h4ppy-chris on March 20, 2013, 11:27 PM
com'on little big man "spiceyokooko" TELL US ALL

As usual Chris, you seem to get things around the wrong way.

Can you point out please, anywhere in this thread, where I've claimed to tell all and anyone how spiced oil is made? Anyone?

Yet, here's Chris, now asking me to explain how it's made?

Just a minor thing to point out to you Chris, you started this thread, not I.

But, as I said in your previous thread on cooking lessons, making spiced oil is a relatively simple process, you extract spice essential oils, whether whole or ground by frying in oil. The oil as a flavour carrier is then infused with the flavour of these essential oils.

Just how difficult a process is this to understand?

Over to you..