Quote from: John on April 18, 2005, 12:33 AM
In my local takeaway they have a pot of red sauce that looks like tandoori marinade...precooked onions may hold a key to the smell and taste that we've been searching for...it seems that we could just be overlooking the obvious, since this is only the main part of the preperation they need to do before they open and it is the used in most curry's...there by you'll be getting the smell all night long

John

I feel observations like yours are invaluable in building up a picture of how the kitchens really work. Do they have a large pot of trhe infamous yellow-ish curry base sauce at your take-away, as well? And is a dollop of that used in nearly all curries, too? How much 'red sauce' is used in each dish, roughly, would you say?

Regards
George

Quote from: Blondie on April 17, 2005, 06:16 PM
I am not meaning to sound clever and I know it isn't perfect, but, there is a search facility at the top of the page which allow us to search for any particular name or phrase within the site, I hope this helps,

Blondie - many thanks for pointing out the search facility. I must be blind as I hadn't realised it was there. This information is a great help.

Quote from: Curry King on April 17, 2005, 10:57 AM

Quote from: Mark J on April 17, 2005, 10:37 AM
All of you who say you cant get the taste, Im now of the opinion thats its all in your heads ;D

I agree, everyone whos tasted my currys have said as good if not better than the restaurant.  I am sceptical that they are that good but i'l go with the general opinion 

It would be useful to all meet up and bring along our best efforts for a joint tasting session, against some benchmark samples of genuine take-away curries from a known, reliable source.

As for currys tasting better than the restaurant, we need to be careful. I'm pleased that my curries are held as better than a (curry house) restaurant by some friends. But this is because I'm trying to cook 'authentic' Indian fine-dining curries, not BIR style curries. So question one should be: "Is this curry in the same family as a BIR curry?" Mine would score very low. Then, if it is, is it up there with the best of BIR curries. We all know of good, bad and mediocre BIR's. But all their offerings are part of the same 'family' in my opinion.

Quote from: Curry King on April 17, 2005, 10:06 AM

Quote from: George on April 16, 2005, 10:31 PM
together with your Korma recipe

Where bouts is this ?  Any chance of posting it in the recipe group?

Curry King - I fear this forum is starting to become too successful for its own good! Locating past nuggets of information is inevetably becoming quite a task. The korma recipe is somewhere in a posting earlier this month. I don't know what the answer is to forum management. The main headings are clear and logical but we often drift a bit off-topic in our enthusiasm for individual topics of conversation.

Quote from: pete on April 16, 2005, 10:53 PM
          so many times this "doesn't work in small quantities" gets mentioned regarding curry gravy.

I remain sure this is a load of tosh...a white lie to avoid divulging their secret recipes.

Ghanna

Thank you for reminding me of your Dhansak / Tarka Dall recipes, which I look forward to trying, together with your Korma recipe, for sure. It's not a question of if, but when.

Regarding the restaurant smell, it might be easier to get a helpful response to the question of smell from restaurant staff, than any question on recipes or ingredients. I assume these guys arrive at a 'cold' restaurant at perhaps 4pm, with only a musty 'night before' smell in the air. They turn on the lights, don their overalls and get down to work. At some point 'that smell' starts to build up. Is it after the tarka dall is started, or the basic curry sauce is warmed up, or only after they cook the first 'finished dish'? I'd guess it must come from something in a frying pan on high heat - not just steam eminating from a basic curry sauce, gently bubbling away.

These guys must know the main dish which produces 'that smell'. Let's ask them.

Regards
George

Quote from: ghanna on April 16, 2005, 08:13 AM
It is the smell of TARKA  DAL   cooking
They start cooking it when they arrive at 4:00 pm
Of course every one know what  TARKA  DAL  consist of

Ghanna

I regard highly your inputs, but how confident are you that this is the smell, the whole smell and nothing but the smell?!

I thought tarka dall is pretty bland stuff, with only a minimal amount of spices added. Which might come right back to square one - which spices exactly? I am so sure that it is the spices which produce 'that smell'. Not chicken, lamb, onions or dall being boiled in water but the spices added to one or more processes. Just my hunch. I may be wrong.

Quote from: DARTHPHALL on April 15, 2005, 09:45 PM
...an ingredient i`ve never seen mentined on this forum or in any book, but it gave me insight to the dishes cooked at my local take-away .Are you ready for it "Kashmiri Masala "...

Thank you for being so bold as to question them in such depth. They must suspect something is going on, though! I fear their responses may be the normal run-around but I hope I am wrong.

I see Pataks do a Kashmiri Masala paste. Perhaps they use a drop or two of Kashmiri Masala but did you assess the significance of this particular ingredient?

My questions in the past have normally been posed by stealth, as white lies if I'm honest, so they don't suspect that the real objective is to steal their recipes. And normally at restaurants well away from home, where I'm not known. I'd order a dish I was interested in (e.g. CTM) and ask if it included a specific ingredient (like coconut), saying I was allergic to it or can't stand the taste. But this approach is slow and not totally revealing.

Quote from: ghanna on April 14, 2005, 10:03 PM
Hi, George - What does it smell like ? I want your opinion please.

Ghanna

Good question, but how does one describe a smell!  My hunch is that the aroma wafting down the high street from curry houses comes from cooking spices in the most general sense of the term. All I know is that 'that smell' seems very similar from restaurant to restaurant, town to town. So, if I'm right, it just depends on the blend or the inclusion of one or more key spices. The diversity of suggestions on 'that smell' is interesting. I must experiment by frying up a crude mix of onions, garlic and ginger, plus various spices, to see if I can produce anything like the same smell. I will certainly try Asafoetida as kindly suggested here.

I think you get the smell even before the restaurants open for business, while they are 'warming up' so I assume it's not always from cooking final dishes.

Regards
George

I'm sure the use of a proper tandoor makes a huge difference. A domestic grill or oven does a fair job but it can't be the same. I hope eventually to install something along the lines of:
http://piers.thompson.users.btopenworld.com/index.html