Quote from: Phil [Chaa006] on October 27, 2012, 06:04 PM

Quote from: 976bar on October 27, 2012, 04:23 PM
It's making me think twice now about my "Purple" Garlic Chili Chicken Masala and "Green" Chicken Tikka Masala all served out of Hollowed Pumpkins for next Wednesday nights, Halloween Curries at the Uni!!

In all seriousness, I think the re-think is wise.  If you really were planning to serve curries with non-canonical colours, I think you could reasonably expect the uptake to be lower than normal.  I have eaten the Nepalese green version of tandoori chicken in Fleet, and was seriously unimpressed.

** Phil.

It was just a joke Phil..... Do you really think I would serve that kind of food to the public?

Oh, by the way, there will only be 2 curries on Halloween, Thursday night will be curry night as usual with more choice if you are around

It's making me think twice now about my "Purple" Garlic Chili Chicken Masala and "Green" Chicken Tikka Masala all served out of Hollowed Pumpkins for next Wednesday nights, Halloween Curries at the Uni!!  ;D ;D

Hi Josh,

Having been quite frequently to Chicago and Florida, I can agree with your findings on USA Indian Restaurants. The Indian's there are mostly South Indian or Sri Lankan and produce mainly traditional Indian Curries. I also have found Madras with curry leaves and mustard leaves, definitely not BIR, but a few of the restaurants did produce some amazing dishes, like Bhuna's.

I would imagine if someone actually opened a BIR restaurant in the USA, it would make a fortune. I know I can get all the spices necessary around the Tampa area in Florida, (having done this personally before), so there would be no shortage there..

It would knock every other Indian Restaurant into touch!!

Quote from: Axe on October 26, 2012, 04:12 PM
Hi Bob,

Interesting comments regarding the Sri Lankan chefs loving the base, I guess its something new to add dimension to what they already know. I am certainly looking forward to seeing some of their traditional recipes.

Clearly you are passionate about this, I have enjoyed reading your topics as you progress. I think the thing that I admire most is that your producing the food in bulk. You seem to be coping with it very well. Perhaps you could ask the head chef to buy a Tandoor

Hi Malcolm,

Thanks for the comments. Yes, it is a passion of mine

The Tandoor is on the list, but given some of the antiquated equipment in the kitchen already, I dare ask for a Tandoor right now.

The other main restaurant at the Uni, (The Founders) was closed today, so we had the bulk of the students, and guess what? Friday being Fish & Chip day, the main deep fryer decided to pack up and we had to resort to one of the smaller fryers for "Grab & Go" (Chinese dim Sum/Prawn selection) and Chips, (You would not believe how many bags of chips we get through in a single session) all had to be done with these silly little fryers lol, it was manic but we got through....

We have an open day tomorrow, expecting some 3000 people, so not quite quite sure how we are going to do chips right now....

I agree with Jerry,, regular stirring will stop scum, but if it does appear, I will almost certainly stir it back in..

As long as they are not turning a pale colour inside and are still quite a whitish/green, then fine by me. Sometimes, I peel and cut an onion and there may be a layer where it is turning colour and going a little too soft, I would normally throw this part away.

Customers want fresh food, and we should want the same

Quote from: Axe on October 25, 2012, 01:42 PM
Brilliant, simply brilliant, looks like your getting the hang of this cooking malarkey.


How did the peppers go down i'm certainly going to give your recipe a go, the wife loves these.


What do you think of the Knorr professional tikka masala paste?


I also noticed you mentioned not using base for the dopiza which may imply you used based for the other dishes. I just assumed that you would bulk cook in a traditional way as opposed to BIR, did you really use base?

Hi Malcolm,

Yes, we make base for all the currie's and even have the Sri Lankan chef's trying it out on their traditional curries now too, which they are loving..

I usually make a 5kg (chopped Onion) Taz base, which amounts to about 10kg of liquid base which we have got to an art now. My only bug bear is that the, "whizzer" we use does not blend to a really smooth base and we have nothing else at present which will take it further, so the base is a little grainy, but the flavour is there...

I let one of the other Sri Lankan chefs make the Dopiaza, which was a basic BIR dish but he used curry leaves and did it his way with water, which turned out really nice for a traditional curry, but was not anywhere near a BIR curry.

As mentioned previously, the Knorr professional pastes are made by Patak's and are very nice

Quote from: Dajoca on October 25, 2012, 12:02 PM
Awesome post as always Bob and really well done for landing the job in the first place.

I bet the students are thrilled with having someone on the staff who can turn out such quality Indian food as opposed to the good old Brit curry with sultana's.

So when are you going to start offering lessons? 

Funny, you should say that, (and not being big headed here), and teaching Chef's from Sri Lanka how to cook BIR food in the Kitchens. Don't get me wrong, they cook some mouth watering traditional Indian dishes, which I am learning as well, and will eventually get to post some recipes on here, but they had never heard of base sauce before or hardly any of the curries from a BIR restaurant... 

I got head chef to buy 6kg of Mutton which arrived on Tuesday, which had been marinading in the fridge and as I was late's today got them to slow cook it at 7.30 this morning for 5-6 hours, so it was just falling apart and tonight made a mutton madras, using the juices from the meat, which was amazing.

The other dishes tonight were, 20kg of Chicken Makhani (butter chicken), 3kg Tarka Dhal, a baby aubergine, potato and mushroom veggie curry.

The usual's, rice, popadoms, naans, coriander chutney, cucumber raita, mint yogurt and mango chutney.

I have pics if anyone is interested...

The knorr professional pastes are in fact made by Pataks, so go down really well. I've asked the head chef to get some kashmiri masala paste for next week.

Tonight's Chicken Makhani, was marinated on Tuesday with Knorr professional Tandoori paste, Greek yougurt, lemon juice, G&G and a spice mix. I pre-cooked the chicken in the ovens while making the sauce, then drop the chicken in about 15-20 minutes before serving so it stays succulent and doesn't dry out. However, it does sit there from 5 -7.30, so am thinking from now on to include 2 trays of chicken for the first serving, then cooking the other 2 trays a little later on.

The only trouble with that is that you cannot predict the students movements, and if you get a rush, they may be waiting around while the chicken cooks.... a dilemma......

The passion is there, and I want to do more, but it is on a large scale therefore can only be refined to a degree....

Well done Michael, that looks really fantastic, I bet your client was really pleased and I hope you made some money out of it. As you now know, a lot of very hard work, but really rewarding

I am glad I was of help

Once again, well done!!

Quote from: Stephen Lindsay on October 20, 2012, 08:30 PM


Chicken Madras, Chicken Punjabi Masala, Rainbow Rice, Onion Kulcha

Looks lovely Stephen, well done