Quote from: commis on March 21, 2013, 10:49 PM
Hi
I've often wondered if spiced oil as a recipe came about because the FSA were finding bad practice in curry houses ?
Regards

Good Post commis - it may well have been, it does seem like a workaround which may have stayed

Quote from: Secret Santa on March 21, 2013, 10:11 PM

Quote from: ELW on March 21, 2013, 06:02 PM
Anyone looking to re create an old style bhoona may do well to look into this. More meat stock &  less gravy. Maybe even in vegetable dishes

ELW

I wouldn't dispute the extra loveliness that a good meat stock will add to a curry but I can tell you with 100% certainty that it's not necessary for the old style bhuna flavour. Nor for that matter is a base sauce.

How do I know?

About 20 years ago I was in a rush to get out and I very hastily cobbled together a curry from raw ingredients, traditional style, no BIR practices whatsoever. Anyway, because I was simultaneously getting ready I forgot the pan and returned to what I was sure was a burnt curry in the making. Being Hank Marvin, I persevered and what do you know - it had the absolutely authentic BIR flavour of Bhuna - absolutely no mistake, I mean exactly!  ;D

Regretfully I forgot what I did and what ingredients I used, so I was never able to reproduce it (and I regularly curse myself for the loss ever since). 

Starting out on curry from very late 80's, I don't even know what the "old school,skool" curries tasted like santa. What I do know 
through ocd like observations is that the 350 odd ml of of watery onion gravy applied across the board in dishes isn't how my
favourite places do their dishes. In some of the dishes, the cooked meats together with the  tarka were almost a curry in itself. Then only a couple of thick chefs spoon of base were added
rather than what now seen in the videos. The Indian Ocean Karahi Vid Dalpuri posted is almost identical to the method i saw, which produces a completely different thing.
Madras/basic curry etc, which is lots of sauce, was more standard as we now know it, albeit with ladles of meat & cooking liquor,
which looked like oil rather than water, added. Not just the meat pieces as seen in many vids.

Regards
ELW

Quote from: curryhell on March 22, 2013, 07:08 PM

Quote from: Phil [Chaa006] on March 22, 2013, 06:34 PM
But why lump poor old Ken, a.k.a. "Garabi Army", into the same category ?  He has visited Chris and reported back with enthusiasm : what possible a priori reason is there to doubt his word ?

Too many emotive and unhelpful comments in this thread.  None of which can yet be judged to be valid with regard to the worth of the e-book content itself, as none of us have seen it yet, let alone tried anything from it.
The only person qualified to pass valid comment at the moment is Garabi Army.  And there's nothing negative in his comments.  So think on guys.  Maybe the critics should bear this in mind and wait a little longer before they start uttering more dismissive remarks and offering their "expert" opinions.  Far too often on this site, people are only to willing to jump the gun.  Any more discussion on this topic is currently quite pointless, unless of course we ask Garabi Army for his FIRST HAND experience.
I do feel the need to add that maybe H4ppy Chris should carefully consider the content of any future posts and perhaps spend more time on getting this book completed.  Such posts as the last one are no help to anybody.  For want of  a better expression, it is now time to s***t or indeed get off of the potty.  That way we can all get on with what this site is about - cooking BIR food at home and stop this constant bickering.  My rant over  :

Doesn't even qualify as a rant these days ch!

ELW

Quote from: Garabi Army on March 22, 2013, 04:06 PM
I do hope this can be sorted out sensibly; Chris really does have something to offer this forum that will get folks to where they want to be. If people could make the BIR curries I did with Chris on Monday I'm sure their quest would be more or less over. I can honestly say I

Quote from: Bengali Bob on March 21, 2013, 04:54 PM

Quote from: spiceyokooko on March 21, 2013, 03:32 PM
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.

Not at my local TA.  Spooned off oil goes straight in the bin.  The oil from the deep fat fryer is also changed every night (sometimes 2 nights if it's been slow).  I have occasionally seen the chef use a small amount of oil from the top of the base gravy (there isn't that much) and added this to a curry.  I think he only does this when they are very busy, with people working behind him, and he can't easily get to the spiced stock/oil in the pre-cooked meats/veg.  Herein 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 

Definitely Rob, I've saw this done in an open kitchen now & posted about it yesterday. Anyone looking to re create an old style bhoona may do well to look into this. More meat stock &  less gravy. Maybe even in vegetable dishes

ELW

QuoteOk no problem, Manchester is the nearest airport (about 20 mile from me). You are welcome to come to my house if you still want to.

Can't really argue with that offer. Photos  are great but tell very little. No more books for me, but at least H4ppy has been very upfront from the start about his venture.
pity no one got around to visiting c2g to taste report back

@jb - I use the Ashoka Banjarra paste/oil in nearly every curry i make, to start dishes & a chefs spoon or more at the end. That was in the original kitchen report

It just disappears into the dish. Without this, all the recipe's in print etc taste nothing like what i may buy in a restaurant.
It would probably work just as well without the onions, which would make it easier to make.Old fryer oil doesn't add anything good as far as i can tell

I'm surprised this has been on the forum for so long without many takers.

Another thing i noticed when in a open kitchen ta was the amount of meat liquor/stock ingredients added along with the meat(this was more oily than watery), it almost produced a curry in itself.
The amount of gravy then added was far less & a bit thicker than i've saw in vids & read.
The depth of flavour produced by that is unreal. The same was done with chicken


The result being that the chicken & lamb "karahi's", although there was no karahi in sight  looked & tasted nothing like each other.
This link was posted before on cr0 & is similar to what I saw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az3CDq5lrFg

Regards

ELW

Quote
I'm the same as you though, if its not breast, its dark. 

unless they are wings.....which are white 

Quote

I am reasonably certain (but would have to do some more research before I could assert this as a fact) that in at least some of the Indic languages, a/u similarly do not form a minimal pair.



Yes, if you look at the Wikipaedia page for Bengali phonology, you will see that the BUT vowel does not occur.  Thus a Bengali speaker, on hearing the BUT vowel in English, will (unless linguistically trained) automatically map it to the nearest vowel sound that does occur in Bengali, which is the BACK vowel (/

@gagomes, I can get huge flames on a really bog standard domestic gas cooker at home. Using a smaller pan (24cm), I don't use water in the GG now  although that can start it. Tomato paste/diluted normally starts the flambe, complete with the Homer Simpson shriek. "Smoky" flavour coming from melted coving & downlighter 

ELW

Quote from: michael.t on February 15, 2013, 11:12 PM
That could be the secret ingredient  ;D

No Michael please, there was a story circulating years back about a woman taken to hospital after eating a curry...once youve heard it, you can't ever unhear it

ELW