I was having a good sniff of the air outside one of the many takeaways in South Sheilds the other day. The small I picked up was.....packet soup!!, the powdered kind, like you get at fairgrounds. Maybe it's Knorr catering paste. 

This seems to be the standard preparation-time smell, as opposed to Smokey smell, when things are going full tilt and the punters are in.

A8

I haven't done the madras yet, but I'm toying with using just curry powder with a bit of extra chilli, some garlic powder and possibly ginger powder, then finally adding some garam masala if needs be. Curry powder is, after all, just a spice mix. If the madras turns out to be crap then it'll only be me that eats it as I'm the only one in the family who'll eat anything remotely hot - I'll just pretend it's nice.

I used a Fairly bland base so I could adapt it for the creamy stuff and this all turned out well.

A8

I'm having the folks around for curries next weekend, so I set about making them to freeze (sauces only - will lob the chicken in on the day)

I made four, two were identical dopiazas, apart from the fact that I pre-fried the spice mix on one and just threw it straight into the sauce on the other. The flavours were quite similar, but the textures were very diffrent.

The fried spice curry had that fluffy texture, you know, where the sauce never seems to mix with the oil. The other had that BIR smoothness, like a soup. It seems like the frying process sort of locks the spices into the oil so they can't mix with the base.

I tasted both, and preferred the non-fried one, though both were
fine. Maybe pre-frying is best for dishes which have little or no base, but loads of oil.

One other interesting point, both curries tasted completely different, after thay had been left to settle - the flavours come out a lot more.l

BTW, I also found that fennel seeds give rice a nice aniseedy overtone.

I would be happy to take a punt on the video. Even if it doesn't deliver the goods, the money goes to a charity so, unless you begrudge that, I can't see how you can loose.

A8

Did anyone see Heston Whatsisface on the box the other night. He was trying to cook the perfact Ragu (spag bol)

I noticed similarities between the cooking sequence he used, and the ones CP suggests in this post. He started with a veggie base and, most significantly, the tomatoes were cooked separately in oil before being added. He went into all the chemical reasons why he did this. He even added a knob of butter (ghee) right at the end

A8

Thanks CP, I'll recover from the last attempt and will have another go.

A8

Hi Chilli,

I had some base in the freezer, so I had a go at 'fusing' as you suggest. I don't think I was very successfully however, but I think that was down to the fact that (I assume ) I may have burnt the spices.

I had the oil at smoking point, then tipped in a few onions, then some puree and the spices. I fried this lot for about a minute on full bore, before introducing the sauce, a bit at a time. I didn't notice any nice smells as I pressed the sauce against the bottom of the pan, but I figured this was because I'd already ruined it by overdoing the spices - maybe I should have started on a lower heat, then turned it up for fusing.

I'm still keen to have another go. I guessed that the fusing is a way of superheating the sauce, the spoon keeping it in contact with the very hot surface and the oil in the sauce (evenly distributed, which is why I blitzed it before use) frying the sauce locally.

I look forward to seeing the your video, but will still have another go in the meantime. I've a feeling that this is one of those things that will take a fair bit of skill and practice. The experts, who do this all the time will make it look effortless, like those blokes that split slates, or put the gold lining on cups and plates.

It still turned out OK though, once I teamed it up with some decent rice and a bottle of Cobra.

A8

CP,

Can you tell me, when making the individual dishes, what happends to the spices - are they fried before the base goes in, then the heat turned up for the fusing, (I'm assuming that high heat is involved) or do they just cook during the fusing.

Sorry to bother you again , but I'm itching to have a go...

A8

PS is flash-frying different to fusing?

Hi CP,

Your discoveries are very exiting, however, due to my small brain size, I'm getting very  confused. When you finalise the recipes, would it be possible to work out the quantities of things such as onions, garlic, ginger, in weight, rather saying how many, or how high they should come up the side of pan. This would help enormously, especially when scaling down quantities.

A8

I'm reluctant to ask this, but has anyone tried using curry powder to totally replace the mixture of various spices. This would explain how so many small outfits can achieve consistant results without the years of experience.

A standard curry would use just the curry powder ( mild madras), with extra chill for the hotter madras, then more still for the vindaloos. The high turnover of this one particular thing would also mean it was constantly fresh.

This site in the link may interest - if you click on the products it sometimes gives you a list of their ingredients. I think I may have ballsed up the link, but here goes!


http://www.simplyspice.co.UK/ground-spices-c-15.html?page=1