Darth

After your glowing reports over many months, I almost certainly will visit Maharajah restaurant if I'm ever in Newquay again. I stayed in the Headland Hotel there once, and would like to go back sometime. It's a good web site too, at:

http://www.maharajah-restaurant.co.uk/index.htm

Regards
George

Quote from: DARTHPHALL on December 15, 2005, 02:34 PM
Bloody hell look at all that Oil !!!
Secondly i agree 100% that its Coriander. ;D

Mark, Darth

Thank you for confirming that it's coriander, rather than fenugreek. I agree about the amount of oil but find that's typical of most BIR curries which I've ever had. It's the reason why I seldom order take-aways or visit BIRs for sit down meals these days.

Regards
George

You can only post 4 photos at a time so here's the other one, referred to above - the vegetables picked out of the vegetable curry sauce.

Regards
George

I bought my first Indian take away for ages last night - a chicken biryani. I watched them cook it and when I arrived home, I took some photos and tried to ascertain what was in the vegetable sauce, which nearly always comes with a BIR biryani.

Observations:
1. The cooking process was hectic/busy and full flame was applied to each pan (1st pan for biryani, 2nd pan for veg sauce) the whole time, other than when the chef took the pans across the room to put in various ingredients. There was plenty of flambe. He put in more different ingredients than I'd expected for each dish, at various stages, out of plastic containers on a table. It was so fast, I defy anybody to ascertain either (a) what each ingredient was and (b) how much quantity he took. I had quite a clear view of the process and it was impossible to follow, let alone remember or write notes.

2. The most useful thing I picked up was that the 'sauce' for the biryani itself (including the chicken, I'm not talking about the vegetable sauce here) was cooked for about five minutes. Then, white rice - presumably pre-cooked - was added and swirled around a bit for only a short while longer until heated through and thoroughly mixed into the 'sauce', before he tipped it all into the large foil container.

2. There were several large tubs of Pride vegetable ghee in the kitchen, so I think this particular place uses that, rather than vegetable oil.

3. The large foil container held 500ml of chicken biryani and the small foil container held 350ml of vegetable sauce.

4. Each dish had quite a large amount of fenugreek or coriander (??) dumped on top. Most of the fenugreek/coriander on the biryani stuck to the lid - please see photo. Is it fenugreek or coriander? I'm not sure. I should have done more homework before posting this!

5. I 'pulled apart' the vegetable sauce to see what was in it. From bottom left, clockwise - the main vegetable was squares of potato, then 1 level tbsp peas, a measly bit of cauliflower, 1 level tbsp carrot squares, some coriander or fenugreek, and some slices of onion. All in all, not much - no 'expensive' vegetables, like corgettes or anything.

The vegetable curry - my main interest here - was 'representative' of a BIR effort for that dish. Overall, I would rate the flavours from the whole meal as average - nothing special.

Regards
George

Quote from: raygraham on December 09, 2005, 05:28 AM
From my own point of view I am still a bit mystified when this Balti fad came into being or exactly when and where it was invented.

I'm no expert, and I think there are much better explanations on various web pages, but my own understanding is as follows:

1. Balti-shaped dishes and other (very minor) elements of Balti technique have been used on the Indian sub continent for centuries.
2. Some BIRs in a particular area of Birmingham (UK) started publicising a 'new way' of cooking in the 1980s. They borrowed various romantic elements from 'back home' to come up with a new 'Balti' marketing image and revised flavours. They could, of course, use any old wok or pan. The key thing is the revised flavor which some people must prefer, I guess. I don't. I prefer standard BIR curries.
3. So the Balti fad which we know was invented in Birmingham and spread out from there as other BIRs climbed on the band wagon.

Regards
George

Quote from: Mark J on December 08, 2005, 12:52 PM
There's no issue embedding a link to an image, the problem with the forum is recently it changed to not allow an upload of a an image file attachment

But there is an isssue, isn't there? Or am I missing a trick here? The whole focus of my messages was to try and get Ray to be able to display his images(s) like I've done 'on his behalf' from his same host - not mine, or hosted at this forum. I agree that the upload of an image to the cr0.co.uk server would be better if they have the storage and bandwidth, but it's not essential. I do share CK's concern about how long the images will remain on external servers.

Regards
George

Ray

This is a real mystery. I proved that it's possible to download your photo from your 'host' so it's not that the host doesn't allow photos to be loaded at cr0.co.uk.

Try copying, pasting and posting the following string AFTER REMOVING ALL FIVE *'s
For what it's worth (not sure) make sure it's all on one line with no spaces; not where I inserted *'s or anywhere.

[*im*g]h*ttp://img528.imageshack.u*s/img528/5628/kushifinisheddishes8gd.th.jpg[/im*g]

Regards
George

Ray

I simply cannot comprehend how you or anyone else has difficulty posting pictures here. You've done the difficult bit in getting them hosted somewhere. I'd be amazed if this is anything to do with your browser or PC.

Click reply to open a new message, like I'm typing up now. At the point where you want to insert an image from your source, click on the second coloured icon from the left. If you hover over this icon it says 'insert image'. It's just to the left of the 'globe' icon.

This brings up img in square brackets followed by slash img in square brackets. Insert your image url in between, which starts with html and ends with .jpg or something like that. I just copied and pasted your link between open img and /img, both in  square brackets.  You can even type [img] and the other end manually.

I hope this helps.

Regards
George

Here's an attempt at presenting Ray's photo. If it comes up, all I did was attach the proper tags. It's nothing to do with this forum 'accpepting' the photos. And I'm no programmer!

Regards
George

Quote from: DeeDee on December 06, 2005, 04:08 PM
My wife made me realize that there is one massive difference between the oil that we could reclaim and the oil that a restaurant could reclaim given that there is a short shelf life to the oil.  Basically ...

I agree that it could take us much longer to build up the level of flavour in the oil because of insignificant activity at home, compared to a busy BIR. But I don't think there's any limit to how long you can keep the oil, as long as it's reheated every 3-4 days, and kept in a fridge, as I recently suggested. Reheat to 150C for 20 mins. A lower temp for a shorter time would probably be adequate, too. I don't think any oil will evaporate at 150C but some of the 'flavour' might. I don't know, and should practice what I preach, to find out.

Regards
George