Quote from: pete on December 04, 2005, 02:47 PM
I still feel it could be clearer
I have tried loads of different brands and ,whilst they are consistant to themselves, they really are very different to each other.
The curry powders are nothing like each other, and neither the Garam Masalas
I think ground spices, such as cummin , coriander and paprika are all the same
What harm is there in saying " we use Natco" ?

Pete

Too right. It certainly could be a lot clearer. To my mind, this book and the web site Q&As are falling into a familiar pattern which reminds me of Pat Chapman (and Tony Blair actually!) i.e. promise the world and appear to fall over backwards to help. You get the impression before, or even after, reading the books that you definitely are on the same wavelength. These people will deliver. But the outcome, after trying the recipes, is very different. They are not telling the whole truth. They are holding things back, like half someone's question here, and the whole of my question to Kushi (BIR vs Balti taste), which never had a response.

It would be so easy for them to say that the chef buys 10KG sacks of a specific brand of spice and uses 50 onions for his base sauce, say. Let us scale it down, or see if we can buy the same spice in 100g sachets. I agree that the various curry powders are different. Therefore you need to know which one to use, or the precise DIY mix, like Bruce Edwards gives.

I also note they said in one Q&A that the base sauce needs to be quite neutral/bland (true) as a starting point for most other curries. So how come people here have reported that all the spices used give it a strong flavour? We know how to follow a recipe. Their recipe for base sauce looks wrong. It doesn't tally with their own Q&A response. I also laughed at another Q&A response where they said you need many years/decades of training/experience to be able to make good curries. Absolute hogwash. If you have a good, tested recipe, you can get most things right, first time.

Regards
George 

I wonder how many local clubs there are, along the lines of this one. What a good idea:

http://petersfieldcurry.org.uk/offers.htm

Do read the letter they got from the BBC.

Regards
George

Quote from: Ashes on December 02, 2005, 04:24 PM
The paving slab sounds like pure genius George, there definately needs to be something to retain the heat when you
open the oven door, most pizza places in Sweden use an oven that gets upto around 300-320 degrees (can get higher)
which is slightly hotter than the average person can get with a standard home oven,
especially once the door has been opened.

More than being an idea which works, it actually costs nothing, as long as you can find an old paving slab and scrub it reasonably clean. I use it primarily for cooking conventional bread. The bread gains from the great heat hitting the base from the slab, rather than sliding the bread into the oven on a cold tin/tray or placing it on the metal rungs of a mid-point shelf.

I know it holds heat because it takes hours to cool down. I'll post a photo later. Try it!

I'm taliking a standard UK paving slab here, as used for domestic patios / walkways; not the paving slabs used by Councils, or anything.

I used a different type of slab at a friend's house for a bread baking demo and that didn't crack, either.

Regards
George

Darth / Ashes

I'm sorry but you've lost me! My take is that the 3 pots approach involves making up three almost completely different base sauces, which end up being used for the relevant (stage 2) dishes.

e.g. pot 1 base would be used for chicken madras, pot 2 would be used for CTM and pot 3 for lamb passanda or korma.
There may be a bit of mixing too, like including some of pot 1 in both CTM and passanda/korma dishes.

I didn't think '3 pot system' refers to the various stages in preparing a 'stage 2' dish, like when you start with partially pre-fried onions, then add some base later, together with spices, tomato or whatever.

Regards
George

Quote from: Ashes on December 01, 2005, 10:14 PM
Actually somone recommended me buying some fireproof stone to put in the oven as it will keep the heat when you open the door., but pizza stone sounds great, guess you can just put the nans directly onto the stone.

I'm sure that firebrick or some other special brick would be optimal, but I don't think it's essential, based on my luck with an old paving slab out of the garden. This was a standard paving slab about 1.5" thick x 2.5ft x 1.5ft. I'm guessing the size, approx. I dropped it to break it in two and it's one-half I use in the oven. To my surprise, several years ago, and to date, it has never cracked. The thickness is much greater than any pizza stone I've seen and it holds/radiates a lot of heat. It works very well.

Regards
George

I had another thought about re-using oil, hopefully to allow us to keep oil in a fridge for weeks, without any health worries. If it starts to smell 'off'  or the taste goes downhill, then that's a different matter. I reckon that if it is removed from the fridge every 3 or 4 days and heated to 120-150C (use a thermometer) for 20 minutes (perhaps less) then there's no chance that any bacteria or anything can build up in the oil. Avoid high (smoking) temperatures because that's when the oil can become dangerous.

Regards
George

PS I came up with this idea after recalling (and reconfirming on the Internet) that stock like chicken or vegetable stock can be taken out and re-simmered for a few minutes every 3-4 days, to help it last much longer. They only go to 100C for 5 mins.  The oil should be easier. Keep it in the same saucepan which you use for the reheat, then there should be negligible wastage. I don't think oil evaporates, either. I've never been ill from any of my curries but I don't yet have experience of reusing and storing oil for long periods.

Quote from: Ian J on December 01, 2005, 03:14 AM
I may be a bit picky with this but I do wonder why there is such a noticeable difference between the 2 version.

Ian

I don't think you're being picky at all. With such huge differences between various quantities of ingredients, it will radically alter the taste of any dish. You can try the two extreme quantities, of course, and have another few attempts with quantities in between, or based on your gut feel from having cooked similar dishes before. But, with so many spices and other elements, the permutations and combinations become almost infinite. You could face making any one dish half a dozen times to get it right. I still have health concerns so, for me, my own progress is very slow.

In summary, most of these writers/presenters may not be giving much away. It's all a bit vague. Deliberately so, I suggest. They have no interest in quality control like, say, Delia Smith or Madhur Jaffrey, whose recipes I find you can generally rely on. Their written and on-screen quantities would generally tally, for a start.

That's what makes this forum so great. Despite all the obstacles, nonsense and white lies put in our way, I think we're making good progress at coming up with good representations of BIR dishes.

Regards
George

Ian and others

>I tried to add a similar amount of spicing to that used by the chef in the video;
>...heaped measures.

It's interesting to hear that slightly increased spicing led to an improvement.

>I?m going to stick with this base for a couple more tries...

I guess any one BIR's base is 'matched' to their 'stage 2' dishes, so we might be lucky in mixing and matching one BIR's base with another BIR's madras, say, or maybe not. There are so many permutations and combinations of so many aspects of this game.

>The CTM is not what I?d class as a Heinz Tomato Soup and Cream
>variety but is still very nice.

I'll definitely try it. Would you say there are two main variants of BIR CTM then? i.e. with/without tomato soup.

Regards
George

Re. the "secret onion paste" they say: "Taste the finished product ? tastes almost ?soapy? ? remind you of anything familiar?"

Did it remind you of anything familiar?

Regards
George

Quote from: raygraham on November 28, 2005, 04:46 PM
CHICKEN TIKKA MASALA
INGREDIENTS
8 pieces of cooked Chicken Tikka from above
1 ? cups of Base Sauce
1 Tbsp Veg Oil
2 Tbsps Single Cream
1 Dessertspoon Plain Yogurt
1 Teaspoon Concentrated Mint Sauce
? pinch Deep Orange Food Colouring
1 Dessertspoon Fresh Coriander, Chopped
I also add ? of a block of Coconut ( not in recipe but adds to the dish )

Ray

If you say this CTM is good, then I'm sure it's worth a try, and I will. But I'm puzzled that there are no tomato or tomato-related ingredients in it, like tomato soup. Is tomato not a standard pre-requisite for a BIR CTM?

Regards
George