Quote from: Dylan on June 03, 2005, 04:41 PM
To me, black cardamom tastes of eucalyptus methyl cough sweets. Having said that, I usually add a couple to my batch of base sauce. Can't say it's done much for the flavor, though.

Yeah, I'ver been there as well - it does nothing, Like you said.

Regarding what you say about the smell of black cardomanns - the seeds don't smell the same as a the husk (as someon pointed out above. If you drind BCs, you get a mdeciinal deep heat type aroma, coming from the very strongly scented seeds. This overpowers the smell of the husks, which is what I am after.

I've tried just about everything to harness the smell of the BC husk, but failed.

Pick up a black cardomann pod. Put it to youir nose and smell it. THAT is the smokey smell. I just can't figure a way to get it into the dish!

Quote from: Ian S. on June 03, 2005, 02:03 PM
That sounds good for the money, Darth - what make is it?? I hate the decanting of sauce into my blender and all that messing about.? But I tried a friend's posh Anthony Warrel-Thompson hand blender and the poor little thing nearly burnt out well before the sauce was pureed.

Thomashenry, I have a cheap & cheerfull jug blender bought for me as a present.? I can't remember the make but it's not well known.? But it has 8 speeds, a 'pulse' function and holds a litre and a half at a time, so I can do a? KD recipe in two batches.

I *can* do A Dhillon batch in 2 goes, but tend to do wit in 3 as I worry about spilling! I can't fault my Magimix, its the rolls-royce of Blenders, built like an absolute tank. I just get annoyed with the decanting in/out stage.

Quote from: George on June 03, 2005, 01:46 PM

Quote from: thomashenry on June 03, 2005, 01:27 PM
What blending equipment do people here use?

I have a hand held blender as well as a liquidiser attachment for my Kenwood Chef food mixer. Nothing will match a liquidiser. The hand held blender doesn't even come close. You can pick up a Chef and liquidiser on eBay for relatively little dosh. A very good investment.

For a picture of the sort of liquidiser I'm talking about, please see an example at:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=20679&item=4386039148&rd=1

You can get good, standalone liquidisers too.

Regards
George

Guess I'll stick with my Magimix then!

What blending equipment do people here use? At the moment I use a Magimix system 31000. Its very good, but requires you to blend in 3 batches when making Dhillon, as the container isnt that big.

I've thought about getting a decent hand blender. Does anyone here use one of these for making their base?

Yeap, thats the one. Measure it all out properly. Once I was 100g short on the onions, and it totally screwed it all up. The only place I differ slightly from Kris is that I tend to simmer the final stage for perhaps 10 minutes longer than she does; she suggests 20 mins, I normally do 30, as it takes that long for the scum to stop rising. I spose it will also make the sauce ever so slightly thicker.

One further thing I did last time which worked well, was to add sugar and salt to the base, rather than to the dishes. Since all my curry dishes contain about 1/2 a teaspoon each of both, and I get 6 dishes from each batch, I add 3 teaspoons of sugar and 3 of salt, during the final simmer. I figured that this would reduce margin for error.

The MarkJ recipies I followed were his ones for Balit and Patia.

The pre-cooked (and thus sweet) finely chopped onions are crucial. The fresh tomato is crucial. If adding chunks of onions and pepper, make sure these are pre cooked. Do a batch, and put them in the fridge.

I've stopped using Patacks for the Balit, and switched to curry masala (1/2 teaspoon), and called it a Bhuna

A lot of the time on this board, when people say they've tried to follow recipies and not had success, I suspect that in fact they've not quite followed the recipie, and ommited one or more ingredient, or swapped it for another. Then they wonder why its not working.

Quote from: Blondie on June 02, 2005, 04:57 PM

Have we sometimes got the right result with and not got the right result with THE SAME BASE.

Yes, I *always* use the same base - Dhillon. Each batch lasts me 6 curries. I've made perfect BIR curries with the taste (PBIRCWTT) one night, then not the next, using base from the same batch. The base is frozen in serving sized portions on the day of making it, so the amount of time the base has been 'standing' has nothing to do with it.

Seriously blondie - use a Dhillon base, and follow and refine the MarkJ dish method. You WILL hit upon the jackpot at some point.

A simple log is not enough. I need to be able to have a arecord of exactly what I've done - not just a rough description of ingredients and method.

I want a record of the exact times between the addition of each ingredient, the way the dish reacted, how much it bubbled, how much falmbeing I did etc

I've just come off a month of curry. Out of 28 dishes, 4 were spot on, meaning the vast majortiy were not. However, it also means that 4 were, so I diid the right thing 4 times. I think next time I do a  curry month, I am going to VIDEO myself cooking the bastards. Then, when I get it right once in every 7 or so attempts, I will have a video recording of me cooking it, so I can see EXACTLY how I did it.

Quote from: raygraham on June 01, 2005, 11:10 PM
I believe we may not be able to completely recreate this elusive taste at home as I think the huge volumes the restaurants make takes away the margins of error we must have using much smaller measures. On the Curryhouse website it says exactly this and I think a small household pan on the stove is too small to maintain consistency in taste and thats why we rarely get the same thing twice. As much as I try I rarely get the same taste twice.
One of my locals cooks the base sauce in a huge pan that must hold 10 gallons so an odd few onions here and bulbs of garlic there isnt going to make a difference at all, consistent every time!

Thiere seem to be two camps on this site: Those who believe the base sauce is the thinng we are not getting right, and those who think that we've got he base sauce right, but that the dish cooking isn't right.

I am very much in the latter camp. I believe both Khris Dhillons' base sauce, and  Pete's base sauce are perfectly suitable for BIR dish creation. I think those who serach for the elusive base sauce are wasting there time: I think we have that part of the riddle solved.

Being a believer in this theory also means the logically, I do not believe that the 'volume' argument has any sway. The only thing BIRs cook in huge volumes is base sauce: individual dishes are cooked individually, in the same quantities we cook them at home. I think it is a fallacy to believe that this is a problem holding us back.

The key lies in every single aspect of cooking the dish. Mark J's dish recipies can certianly give perfect BIR dishes, as a few of us have experiences this. Being able to do them consistently is a different matter. Everything makes a difference to the final taste: exact quantities used; exact temperature of the oil, how long you cook each stage for, inbetween adding ingreadients etc. Indian BIR chefs cook 50 meals a night; we cook one a night maximum, and thats if we eat nothing but curry! The practise, and the 'feel' for cooking the dishes is something we will learn slowly.

Its like any form of cooking really: noivce cooks can follow a recipie, but it will take them a long time before the intuitively know what each action they take is dfoing to the dish, exactly how hot to cook things, etc etc. This is the stage we are at really. A recipie is only a rought guideline to cooking a dish: accurate re-creation requires experience, intuition and skill, that only comes with time.