Hi Abdul

If you're still about and I hope you are as well, on a different note, do you have a recipe for stuffed pepper please

regards

Wayne

Cheers CH

Funny you mentioned tom puree in your other post, and last night for the 1st time I used approx 1 heaped tsp straight from the tube as I normally dilute it.

I guess we're all looking for the same answers ;D

Wayne

Quote from: JerryM on December 30, 2011, 10:04 AM
i feel my planned ashoka revisit is my biggest need (sauces and pastes, recipe refinement). the arbitrary 95% is like fell walking the ground starts off pretty much flat and a lot of ground can be covered relatively quickly.

this final gap of say 5% is far more tricky - i see it as not much ground to cover but the peaks are high.

my gut feeling is that this 5% breaks down into something like:

1% equipment
1% technique
1% sauces and pastes
1% recipe refinement
1% mix powder

given the mix powder was quite a surprise my inherent fear of missing a trick has resurfaced (you think you know but you don't) - hence the post

the 5% could be as much as 10% for example although i doubt it. is there a no 6 & 7 say.

thoughts that immediately come to mind that have gone off my radar (the 5% constituents) being:

a) things BIR's do through operation that home cooking would not naturally come across
b) things that are not discarded

i'm essentially after a sanity check so any thoughts much appreciated

Hi Jerry

I completely agree with your comments above and have spent the last couple of days pondering my own errors and techniques in search of answers, I drew some conclusions, made a chicken tikka jalfrezi last night and it was my best effort to date, If I can replicate this time after time then I'm a happy chappie, and will only search for enhancements etc.

My initial thoughts were with the gravy. this time I made ifindforu's enhanced gravy (the best i can interpret it), It came out very good, but in truth wasn't a great deal different to the others i've tried.

I noticed that there isn't a lot of spices going into that gravy, whereas julian seems to put loads in, so my conclusion on that one was, I need more mixed powder in the curries I make, not the half to one tsp as some recipes suggest. (now upped to heaped tsp)

Lesson learnt for me, difficult to get the spicing right using a different base to someones curry recipe, ie check if more mixed powder needed when using a lightly spiced base.

Another thing I noticed is my chef spoon doesn't look as deep as the pro chefs spoons, so added a touch more ingredient when chef's spoon measurements called for.

My kitchen ladle is nowhere near the size of the ones used in all the videos and on close inspection I guestimated about 3 of mine to 1 of theirs (i knew it was smaller but didn't envisage that much). When using 2 ladle fulls to make a curry this is a significant discrepancy.

I used the one (3 of mine)  ladle reduction technique and am well happy with the result now

All cooked with razor's tip of clothes peg on nose! lol

I'll be up for this as well

Wayne

Quote from: Razor on December 28, 2011, 04:16 PM

Quote from: Whandsy on December 28, 2011, 02:23 PM
Maybe a load of cr0 members been stocking up haha

I think that it is just me and you Wayne from this neck of the woods.  Thanks for saving me a journey to ASM though, seeing as though you've got the last one

Ray

There was one left after I'd got mine pal, to be fair it's the 1st time I've been to that one and was like a kid in a sweet shop, it's a big place and there'd probably be more in that warehouse at the back

I have just bought a box of this from Ashton Sweet Mart nr Manchester, must be popular as only had 1 box left on the shelf and Jalpur had a few other spices on the shelf as well. Maybe a load of cr0 members been stocking up haha

QuoteMy thoughts would be the same as yours CA but Julians base is quite different, as his "1st cook stage", is done with oil as the main wet ingredient, water being added as little more more than a gesture..!  Yes, further water is going to be released from the onions and to a point, the other veg.  The other thing to note is, I should imagine that the water content will evaporate somewhat, especially as it appears that he doesn't cook his base with a lid.  Using oil instead of water should reduce the amount of evaporation and, retain pretty much all of the flavour of the veg?  Of course, this is speculative on my part as I don't know for sure if that would be the case but it seems feasible?

There HAS to be more than one way to "skin the cat" so to speak, to get the same result. We've all been in takeaways and seen that big pot of onions etc filled to the brim with water bubbling away. I know I've seen it on lots of occasions whilst waiting for the curry to finish. They also weren't at the cooked stage ready for blending they were raw.

Another comment regards heat source etc, when I was last in the takeaway and was chatting to the chef, it seemed to take a while to cook and when I commented on this he said he'd left it on low heat cos we were chatting, so there goes the flame height theory (well maybe  ) and I looked for the 1st ladle reduction but no, just one big one from the start. DOH!

Quote5) Burner Size - CA was right. i cook in the garage now and have upped my propane to a nice little 19kg bottle. for me you can'y cook BIR in a domestic kitchen. parker21's tip of newspaper still lives on but my good lady never was impressed

If this is correct, then many of us will be disappointed with this
I wonder if Abdul, Julian or Ifindforu could comment on whether they can replicate their restaurant dishes at home!

Let us know please

Wayne

Wow, after reading julians comment, i checked out the review from him of prashad. Don't think we'll be replicating their garam masala somehow, see below

Quote
julian v
Preston, United Kingdom
1 review

1 helpful vote
?Excellent Food- Kaushy's Garam Masala mix out of this world!?
Reviewed 26 November 2011
1 person found this review helpful
We visited Prashad after following the Family on 'Ramsey's Best Restaurants' I have to say the food and sevice was excellent! Having explained to Bobby that we had just opened our own small Indian takeaway, he kindly gave me a free sample of 'Kaushy's Special Garam Masala Mix. WOW!! This Garam Masala is fantastic and so aromatic, the smallest amount creates a wonderfull flavour, particularly when used just at the end of cooking just before serving. It's so good that I have been using it sparingly- at least till i can get back over to Bradford and pick up some more.

Prashad's pasion for cooking show's in the food they serve but the fact they have created their own special Garam masal blend, for me, shows their dedication to excellence!

Julian Voigt
Curry 2 Go- CHORLEY


Visited September 2011


Bobby Patel, Owner at Prashad, responded to this review
4 December 2011
Hi Julian, thanks for taking time out to share your love of Prashad, we are really pleased that you loved the garam masala, this is Kaushy's Grandma's recipe and consists of 26 ingredients. The are slow roasted and acred for for 3 weeks before stone milled to a perfect medium coarse grind. I hope your business is doing well and when I am in Cholrey we will bring more garram masala for you. Bobby

I guess it keeps our journey through to curry nirvana more interesting!

Hi Spicey

Have you read the Bruce Edwards article recently resurrected https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=2815.0 and indeed a follow up to this https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=3074.0

He does point out that a lot of the flames we see do go up the sides of the pan and contents appear to be only simmering. Check them out if you haven't already, both articles make fascinating reading imo

Regards

Wayne