Curry King

I stand by my original comments. I doubt if I would find any restaurant chefs that will tell me how it's done. It's their secret and livelihood. You say "how come what I was shown was almost identical to what Pete was shown a year or so ago?" The gap in our understanding may be quite small, like the exact blend of garam masala, where any spice mix is possible. Yes, I think you have been lied to, in the nicest possible way. But it's like in Parliament, they're not allowed to use the word 'lie'.

You make a very good point about every single restaurant chef in the country being sworn to some pact to take "the curry secret" to there graves. This is the biggest mystery for me; why nobody has made money from a genuine Curry Secret book which really works, or from cooking lessons which enable us to produce curries identical to the best of a curry house.

Quote from: Curry King on April 06, 2005, 09:20 AM
He did say that to me though, that you can't reproduce it at home, he even tried himself and coudln't do it exactly the same.

I respectfully suggest that he's having you on. A restaurant kitchen is walls, floor and ceiling with certain equipment, methods and ingredients. It must be perfectly possible to recreate it 100% at home.

Say that to produce a fantastic expresso you needed a bar top Gaggia, plumbed in like in coffee bars. These cost ?3000++ and take up huge amounts of space. You may decide it's not worth it. But it could be done. The chefs almost certainly know 'the curry secret' but they are not letting on. This is not rocket science. It's something simple like flambe, oil reuse or the spice mix. But we apparently haven't found it yet.

I agree 100% with Grimmo's recent posting - that it's amazing the full explanation is not all over the internet, given that thousands and thousands of UK cooks all know exactly how it's done.

Regards
George

Ghanna

Your korma recipe looks VERY promising, judging by the list of ingredients. Thank you very much and I look forward to trying it.

I trust your judgement on the desirability of not letting a tomato go anywhere near this dish BUT don't the restaurants use the same base sauce as for anything else? The balance of opinion here seems to be that most restaurants probably use a base sauce containing tomatoes.

I also share the view put forward by another member, a few days back, that you'd really expect the base sauce only to contain ingredients which are common to virtually ALL curries.

Regards
George

Mark, Ghanna - what are your favourite recipes for restaurant style Chicken Korma please?

Ghanna

Thank you for your reply. I was unsure about asking and I absolutely respect your wish to remain anonymous.

Regards
George

Quote from: ghanna on March 31, 2005, 09:21 PM
i hope i helped

Ghanna

You certainly are helping. You are an absolute goldmine of information, on this thread and many others. It is very good of you.

Incidentally, which part of the world are you and your family from, please? I only ask because of your name. I see Om Kalthom (one of my favourite vocalists) did a song called Ghanna El Rabea, so is there a Middle East link to your name, I wonder?

Regards
George

Ghanna

Thank you for flagging up these recipes. So that I don't concentrate on the wrong one, which of the two recipes was the one which your family liked so much? Was it the star chefs one, or the ask a chef one, please?

Also, do you know if evaporated milk is more likely to be used in chicken korma (restaurant versions), rather than cream?

Regards
George

One question I have here (and most of my previous questions have gone unanswered!) is to question whether we're all talking about the same special taste. We can't be sure, of course.

Another question: what percentage of all the places you've ever been to have that taste? i.e. out of all the UK Indian restaurant and take-aways you've ever been to. I'd say 90% in my case, but not 100%, after excluding up-market places which serve 'real' Indian food, e.g. Chutney Mary or the Red Fort in London. Perhaps the other 10% of the curry houses don't have the right connections/spices/method, like we don't appear to have (yet). I still reckon I could distinguish between a supermaket chilled curry and a curry house curry in most cases. The supermarket manufacturers (run mainly by Indians I believe) don't create that taste, either, perhaps because they're not allowed to use so much oil and salt.

My search for DIY versions of UK restaurant style curries started back around 1984. It was in that year that I bought a book by Pat Chapman called 'Indian Restaurant Cookbook'. I paid ?7.95 in 1984 money because the claims sounded so promising:

Rear cover: "'...will help you achieve that special Indian restaurant flavour in your own kitchen - with minimum effort...". Remember that term 'minimum effort' - see my further comments below.

Then on page 10, there is a section headed 'That Restaurant Flavour' with a full page of text. It suggested Pat Chapman was on the same wavelength as I was then, and we are now.

But the book never delivered. The recipes which I tried all fell well short of 'that restaurant flavour'. Worse still, Mr Chapman quickly drifts from the subject in hand (restaurant curries) to fill out pages mostly with recipes not from restaurants at all.

I have another Pat Chapman book, called 'Curries' published by Sainsbury's in 1989. This book demonstrates another pet hate I have concerning Pat Chapman' approach:

e.g. There is a recipe for Chicken Tikka Masala on page 59. It includes 300ml curry puree (see page 9). Page 9 includes the recipe for curry puree but in turn needs 7 heaped tbls mild curry paste (see page eight). Page eight has the recipe for curry paste, which requires 250g of mild curry powder (see page 7). Page 7 has the recipe for mild curry powder. Phew! Minimum effort? Is he winding us up or what?

Quote from: pete on March 28, 2005, 04:59 PM
I think for some technical reason you cannot produce exact restaurant curries at home.
I think you haven't got the heat you need.
The oil isn't getting hot enough.

This weekend, for the first time in ages, I went to a take-away with an open plan kitchen. They only used one temperature for every stage of everything they were cooking for me and other customers - full blast heat.

I suggest that, to get as close to the restaurant kitchen approach, and taste, in your own home, there are a few things which are absolutely essential:
- a gas hob on full blast (If I had electric, I'd change the hob for sure!)
- figure out how to ignite/flambe the food every few seconds whilst cooking and rolling around the wok. The effect of fire must surely have a significant effect on the taste.
- unbelievably unhealthy quantities of vegetable oil and salt. There were load of huge drums of vegetable oil in the kitchen, compared to only a few small pots of ghee.

This may not be how they cook the base sauce, of course. I'm talking about stage 2 for the final dishes.