Could someone please post a photo or scan of the Basaar Mix packet, so we know what to look out for?

Regards
George

CK

The take-aways I use are in south Hertfordshire, not far from the north edge of the M25. The last place I tried, which gave me the free extras, would charge ?3.95 for a chicken vindaloo and ?1.70 for pilau rice. My 'analysis' of their oily vegetable sauce showed that it was also packed with vegetables, at least compared to the first place I tried (and placed photos on another thread), which had very few vegetables in the sauce.

If anyone else feels like trying a chicken biryani, not least so they can place some photos here, that would be great.

Regards
George



 

Quote from: extrahotchillie on January 04, 2006, 06:38 PM
Like I said you can make better, because you have pride in your cooking, look no more, just cook it and enjoy. :

ehc

I think you might be right. We should be able to do much better with this particular dish than any of the 3 BIR take-aways I've now tried, recently. Ordering the same dish, night after night, in so short a time period, from different places, has let me decide that they do vary quite a bit - more than I previously believed - in flavour and oil level, etc. The thing they all share is that common BIR 'taste', and that this really is junk food, taste wise, health wise, any wise. They were all an abomination of what a proper biryani should be like.

Here are some photos of the chicken biryani I had last night. This place had a door on the kitchen so I couldn't see.

- the rice/chicken had more flavour
- the veg sauce was back to being very oily
- the chunks of vegetables were bigger than before
- they added a whole hard-boiled egg to the rice
- it cost ?1 less than the previous place - only ?5.50 here - and they also threw in some welcome extras, making it much better value.

Regards
George

Here are a couple more photos of a BIR chicken biryani from yet another take away. I'm posting these as an idea of what to aim for. Actually, it got me thinking: "why am I wasting ?6.50 on this stuff, apart from watching the chef make it, and to pick it apart a bit when I get home?"

The overall meal rice+sauce was pleasant enough, but nothing special (again) if I'm honest. The rice/chicken bit, in particular, had very little flavour. It was just pleasant. If I'd made this - what with my sense of smell dulled by the cooking process - then I would almost certainly have thought I'd failed! i.e that it wasn't as good as from a BIR. But this was from a BIR!

I'd used the take away before about 5 years ago but the management has changed since then, they told me.

Once more, I found it impossible to follow exactly what was going on, with so many bits of this and that being added. General observations were:
- that the chef used less oil than the previous place I tried, and it showed in the curry sauce, too
- he added small quantities of base sauce 3-4 times, rather than a larger quantity in one go

Then the owner distracted me with conversation when he might have guessed I was watching too closely!

Regards
George

Quote from: extrahotchillie on January 03, 2006, 01:20 PM...passing on the information I was given...

First class stuff, a well written and interesting read, too. Who knows if other BIRs use lemon juice and vinegar(I suspect some do) but it doesn't sound like that chef does. Why would be lie about that? Anyway, was your meal there up with the best of BIR? I assume the chef was of Indian extraction, was he?

Regards
George

Quote from: Mark J on January 02, 2006, 06:48 PM
When I get a mo I'll compile it all into one post 

Mark

Many thanks. I think the main gap in my knowledge is the underlying base sauce recipe from the members only area at curry house co.uk.

I haven't signed up since I have too many base sauces and other recipes piled up, ready to try, without needing to buy any more recipes. I respect fully any decision not to write out curry house recipes at this forum, in keeping with the request on the curry house web site not to reprint any of his recipes.

Regards
George

I fear I'm too lazy to find or rebuild the recipe. It's my weakness, my fault and my loss.  I fear this forum is getting too much like hard work, given my laziness, a bit like finding a needle in a haystack - information overload, layer upon layer of amendments, comments, changes, variations, updates, etc. It's no one's fault but just inevitable I guess, when there's no "manager", QA, editor or anything! Too bad.

Regards
George

Quote from: Mark J on January 02, 2006, 11:02 AM
If anyone hasnt tried this base yet I would strongly advise you to as I think it is near perfect.

Also see this post for an update: https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=602.msg5523#msg5523

Mark

Which base are you referring to, please? Is that the curry house one for subscribers only and, is it to be found anywhere here at cr0.co.uk?

I went to your update at "msg5523" and it starts off half way through with: " Add remaining spiced oil (usually ~250ml) and top up with ground nut oil to ~500ml". Is the entire recipe anywhere, so it's easy to use, please?

Regards
George

Quote from: Yellow Fingers on December 29, 2005, 05:40 PM
I've definitely tried George, but alas no success yet. In principle it's easy. You heat up some curry base with your choice of meat, add some biryani masala, bung in a portion of cold pilau rice and stir fry until the curry sauce is absorbed by the rice. Then of course you can add raisins, almond slivers etc. and top with any combination of slices of tomato, cucumber and boiled egg to make it like your local version. In practice, unsurprisingly, it's the biryani masala that's the problem as I just can't seem to get a blend that's right. In desperation I recently picked up a jar of biryani masala from Tesco and I'lll give that a go when I have time

YF

Many thanks for your report on work-in-progress. It sounds like the spicing (masala) is the key, then, from what you've found. I hoped that one might not need to add much more than the base sauce, if the base sauce already tastes good on it's own, like MarkJ's did when I made it. But again, not having tried to make a BIR chicken biryani yet myself, it sounds like I'm wrong. The take-away I visited recently also added lots of different bits and pieces (I don't know what) so I guess it's not as simple as I'd first hoped. I'll save my money on any almond slivers, tomato, cucumber, boiled egg etc (the finishing touches, more for appearance than taste, I assume), until the basic taste of the core element - the 'coated' rice and chicken mix - is like at a BIR. 95% of hundreds of BIR chicken biryanis I've had over many years, at dozens of different BIRs have all tasted very, very similar - almost as close as one Big Mac tasting virtually identical to another Big Mac, any time, any place.

Regards
George

Quote from: raygraham on December 20, 2005, 07:39 PM
So here's the dinner menu for all 20 workers who are gonna be grafting at Keighley Ambulance Station while you lot are getting full of Xmas pud and Xmas cheer.

Ray

How did it go? I was thinking of you and your curries as we sat down for a more traditional and (I must say) less interesting lunch on Chritstmas Day. You must have put in a lot of effort to make that lot. I hope all the dishes came out well and it was very well received. I'm sorry if you have already posted feedback on another thread, which I might have missed.

Regards
George