Quote from: curryhell on June 12, 2012, 07:27 PM
This interesting thread continues Paul.  I'm still not been won over though.  Chicken tikka and chips You should be ashamed unless of course that was the little one's ;D

I know I know (hangs head in shame),  ;D

I'm still at the experimenting stage CH so cut me some slack! That chicken sure was tender though 

Paul

Ho hum it's me again and my sous vide experiments.   

Last night was chicken tikka. I used about 500 grams of chicken breasts (3 in total).
I copped out again and used Mr Huda for the tikka paste but next time I'll make up my own blade style mix.

First picture - the frozen chicken and marinade just been sealed:



Second picture close up of my Sous Vide Magic. Unfortunately the flash makes the numbers hard to read.
The top number is the actual temp, 57.2 degrees and the bottom number is the set temperature which was 61.0.



The temp dropped when I put the frozen chicken in the water bath but within about 20 minutes it was rock steady at 61.0 degrees. I cooked it like this for 3 hours to ensure the heat would penetrate right through.

Here is a close up of the chicken in the water bath:




The next picture show the chicken on skewers before going into a conventional oven:



The oven was about 200 degrees and the chicken was in for about 10 minutes.

Final picture on plate:



Verdict:

This was very nice and tender. I only used the Mr Huda paste as I've read all this stuff about garlic tasting weird after low temp cooking in a bag. Next time I'll use a "proper" marinade.
I must admit since I last bought Mr Huda the tikka marinade used to contain more food colouring.
My 6 year old son is presently enjoying the third of chicken we saved for him.

Cheers,

Paul

Hi Axe, you haven't posted for a long time. Hope you are doing ok and good to see you back. 

Paul

Well you can spend less than

Hi Stonecut,

I just checked and www.spicesofindia.co.uk will deliver to Germany for

Hi CH,

The hottest burner on that cooker is only about 3.25 Kw and that is the wok ring. It's a case of more show than go I think!

Sous vide chicken tikka on the go now, I'll post up the results and photos soon. The theory for the chicken is that at 60 degrees it cooks through and turns white but is no way overcooked. Then I'll skewer the chicken and finish off for 5-10 minutes in a very hot oven. This should be very juicy but it won't be ready to skewer until about 10 pm tonight.

Cheers,

Paul

Quote from: curryhell on June 10, 2012, 10:57 PM
The pics are back guys.  Very interesting report on the sous vide method Paul.  I like the look of your cooker (going green with envy)  Is it  a restaurant style range? Where did you get it?

Hi CH,

The cooker was in the house when I bought it about 4 years ago. It's a domestic Italian Smeg (!) 90 cm range cooker. It does have six rings which is handy as I like to use the front 3 rings together.
It would have cost about

Thanks for the links Stonecut, I've been on that web site before as it has some interesting stuff on it and in my pursuit of sous vide cooking experiences, of which the author has experience.

Cheers,

Paul

Hi Carpetfilter,

A lot of us on this forum started off using traditional Indian cookbooks many years ago and were surprised to find that the dishes produced tasted nothing like our British Indian restaurants and takeaways.

That's what this forum is all about. I've also got the 50 greatest curries cookbook and I've made a couple of dishes but they did not taste BIR at all. I don't think MSG plays much of a part in this type of food either.

Have a look around the forum. The curries here are based on the production of a base sauce. Using the base sauce the final curries can usually be produced in less than 10 minutes.

Cheers,

Paul

This is a good point and it bothers me. I've always hand chopped garlic and ginger just before cooking it and I've never managed to get it to any stage of brown without getting the full-on burnt garlic bitterness, even when the visible pieces of garlic are just browing at the edges at which point I've rapidly cooled the pan.

Now I raised this again a few months ago and the advice was to make up the blend of garlic and ginger as it doesn't burn so easily. I plan to do this soon and can't really understand why this may be the case but I'm prepared to try.

I think a lot of BIR aroma is to do with garlic, but I couldn't really explain why.

Fresh coriander - yes I often chop coriander stalks into my curries in very short pieces like a couple of mm.
These retain a small aromatic mouth explosion even when cooked which I find the leaves lose altogether.

Paul