Quote from: pete on May 18, 2005, 05:58 PM
The main reason I think quantity plays a part, is because you get told so...

I've learned not to believe everything I'm told. I think this excuse is either because the chefs don't know the real reason or, if they do, they certainly don't want to tell their customers.

Quote from: joe2 on May 17, 2005, 10:32 PM
Re: The taste we desire can only be achieved by cooking in quantities...Many people may disagree with these comments.  Sorry, I just try to speak the truth as I find it.

I don't disagree. I think you're right. I don't accept different quantities as a valid reason whey cooking at home should not produce the same taste as cooking in a restaurant kitchen. High flames, tandoor oven, skilled chef, correct spice mix - yes. Vast quantities - no.

Quote from: pete on May 17, 2005, 01:23 PM
What I would really like to see is the proper quantities recipe, as used in a restaurant.
You know, "take 0ne and a half sacks of onion, 2 lbs of garlic, 3 bags of curry powder etc."

I agree. There's less of a margin for error if we could learn the large scale quantities actually used, and then decide how to scale it down ourselves.

Quote from: Mark J on May 17, 2005, 08:23 AM
I have heard from a number of sources that Kris is a woman

So have I, but I now consider it counts for nothing. I suggest there's a 50% chance that the author is a man or even two or more persons.  Who knows?

Regards
George

Many recipes just specify 'cardamons' without saying whether they mean green, black or any other colour. It's not good enough! I'm sure I've got it wrong before now, when I guess which type seems most appropriate.

Regards
George

Quote from: pete on May 15, 2005, 09:18 AM
I have never totally given up on KD curry secret

Where does the elusive Kris Dillon hang out? And Pat Chapman for that matter. Kris Dillon may be a pen name but a real person must have actually written the book. These authors are at least as interested in curries as we are. You'd think they would soon find these forums and couldn't resist the opportunity to pass comment.

Quote from: Mark J on May 12, 2005, 09:19 PM
I cook my curries in the oven and they are awesome

Me too. My curries cooked in the oven are pretty good but that's not the point in my humble opinion. They don't have the BIR taste. We all know that when you order a curry from a BIR, you're not kept waiting for an hour while it's cooked at gas mark 4. By definition, such recipes can't be authentic if our objective is to emulate BIR efforts.

Mark - Many thanks for obtaining and reporting your restaurant owner's comments - invaluable in building up a picture. But one thing concerns me -  he said any curry powder would be 'fine'. These people never like to offend. I'm sure Rajah curry powder would be fine. But would it be optimal or best? There's likely to be a significant difference, including the ingredients which lead to the best taste, between a curry powder mix which is fine, and one which is optimal. In my mind, I think the inclusion or omission of things like green peppers and chicken stock could be the difference between one local BIR and another, fine tuning. BIR curries do vary a bit. But I also believe the common 'special taste' is from what's in the curry powder, or perhaps herbs.

I must be missing a trick with QuickTime videos. I've lost count of the number of times I've downloaded the plug-in but it never seems to work the next time! So I can't see the video either.

I'm interested to see their use of onion powder and coconut flour, which are two ingredients I already had in my list of things to try. But I suggest these are not recipes for the BIR curries we seek. If we widen the scope to any good curry, there are hundreds of books and websites we could list.

85g of either the onion powder or coconut flour cost ?2.90 each. What a price! I guess they are looking for a healthy profit. I'm sure these two ingredients are available at any half-decent Asian grocer for a fraction of that price.

Molasses sometimes refer to a darker, more natural, less purified type of sugar. This has a different flavour to white sugar and could be well worth trying. I've been meaning to use that kind of sugar in my attempts at BIR chicken korma, since I'm sure BIR kormas have a taste which is sweet with a hint of toffee or fudge.

Someone else suggested a toffee flavour in BIR curries recently. Another idea of mine was to 'fry' the sugar as part of the cooking process. Now if you boil sugar, you are on the way to making toffee, so that's another thing to try.

Regards
George