Quote from: Stephen Lindsay on January 06, 2013, 12:01 AM
ELW - yes the Shish Mahal is legendary - I think they may also have done a cookbook some time ago?

It only compounded the conspiracy theory. I have the book, I think it was produced as a marketing tool for Charles/Diana wedding. "Not bir". The food from their restaurant however is borderline addictive! The best Ive tasted anywhere

Yes I checked out the menu & the blog just there. The Green Gates(1959) Glasgow, mentioned in the blog, is now the Shish Mahal, same family. This food, as i suspect as is the Malabar Dundee, is light years beyond what we know on cro, recipe & technique. But we do have the foundations on here no question.
Regards
ELW

yes, is that what your trying to replicate at home?

The Daily Mail specialises in journalistic hallucinations, sometimes known as changing the subject, chloroform for the masses or just plain pandering to prejudice......For better quality trash, I like Banged up Abroad (subscription needed) but like to veg out on man v food. Adam Richman is stupid/smart & very funny in the correct ratio  :)Glasgow cuisine should get their bid in for man v food "europe".....which is definitley in the post. we should be odds on favourite for that bout

Regards
ELW

Hi Stephen, how do your dishes using the taz method compare to the malabar?

Regards
ELW

Brilliant michael.t! Report in for debriefing asap, if you don't mind 

Regards
ELW

Quote from: Stephen Lindsay on January 05, 2013, 08:41 PM
I really don't subscribe to this notion of granny's lentil soup requires 30 years effort to get it right - to me this is one of the myths that we need to kick into touch.

Beat me to that Just edited my post to reflect that stephen

?? anyone else posting & not appearing...is the modify time shorter?
am i using white font on a white background?


What I was posting was that bir is set up for mass production, pre bir boom it may have resembled traditional cooking in a way, minus the meat stock gravy used across the board. The t/a acroos the road from me sells; donner kebab, bir range(huge), fish & chips, pizza. The chef?, well he works in the newsagents next door during the day as his boss own it all. In the small amount of bir video footage available, i don't ever remember seeing a bir chef tasting the food as he goes

Hi Harley, "say that alot about new members"? yes glad that drew some debate.I'm a fairly new member here myself & considering there's not a whole lot of places around to dicuss bir cooking, I'll use new members posts to gauge what is "known" & what is not. I also credit people who have gone out of their way to join a forum such as this, who have been posting their results for +6 years, with some cooking skills.
"Experienced" On cro(?) I reckon is awareness of information gained from kitchens & their subsequent home replications. I put it all together. Recipe's on here are useless to me without user feedback.

@jb. yes i'm very familiar with jb's input. (base gravy fom his fav bir is similar to his home version)..he may have something more interesting coming up than that soon though

@admin - I was in what a lot of people consider one of the best bir restaurants in Glasgow last night(est 1959), mad expensive......trs powdered spice on their shelves

Regards
ELW

Hi jerrym, this was/is a great quick reference to cooking at home. I also see the discrepancies between cookbook recipe's, instructional videos & the resulting food produced at home when compared to the restaurant. The use of onion gravy for the bulk of a curry is clearly the largest factor, but i know for sure that blindly following a recipe on here or elsewhere, will unlikely produce the bir flavour at home. I notice how many people new to making curries with base gravy, frequently report "better than their local" results, after only a few attempts, while grizzled curry veterans disagree. . Something wrong there. I agree there is something missing to complete the picture, ingredients/technique, I've no idea. I've also no idea why my efforts can be hit & miss using exactly the same ingredients, including base. I can measure every element accurately except technique. I can produce bir tasting curries at home, but like you say it's not as simple as following the recipe. I try & copy the techniques from the bir footage


Any recipe i've come across for say lamb karahi, will never produce anything like the one i ordered last night.Some kind of half pureed onion & possibly garlic(banjarra like) in there.I didn't want to examine it too much in front of everyone, been seen doing that before!.  Interestingly, all my best curries have had banjarra paste added.  There was also Huge tins of heinz condensed tomato soup & loads of maggi sauces on view in their kitchen, yet i've never saw soup in any recipe(tikka masala) yet. A huge plastic tub of what looked like cracked black pepper, which they must be using plenty of. I don't really get the opportunity to talk to many chefs or owners, but one did say they use "scented oil" for their pakoras, bhajis not really being a Glasgow thing. Vegetable ghee is something I've yet to resolve

Keep up the good work
ELW

Yes bobbybouchet88, George is right, & you probably speak for the majority(more than half) of cr0 members.In home cooking there is a gap in general. I've cooked a good few curries that replicate the bir taste, but can't manage it consistently...reading veteran home cook posts on here who have cooked more curry than i've had hot dinners, from the archives will confirm that. New posters nearly always post glowing results, photos & videos which tell us nothing. I had a similar honeymoon period when i followed the K Dhillon recipe's. Those recipe's & plenty on cr0, ultimately & inadvertantly slow the progress of cr0.  Following recipe's on here, in books & elsewhere will unlikely produce what people are after. there is an "unknown", I don't believe for a second it's secret ingredient, if a