Quote from: noble ox on January 28, 2012, 10:14 AM
Why? Can anyone answer who knows the reason
It defies logic

I don't know with 100% certainty why it's common practice, but I'm pretty confident of understanding why it's done.

It's expediency.

We need to remember that most BIR's and T/A's are working on a time/cost/profit basis, in other word's they're being run as a business to produce profit and they will always take any shortcuts or cut any corners they can whilst still producing an acceptable end product. Why buy in and keep in stock all the minor ingredients found in most commercial curry powders when you can just dollop in a couple of tablespoons of commercial curry powder and the problem is solved? It's quicker and cheaper to do it that way - and that's why they do it.

But it's also one of the reasons that most if not all BIR's and T/A's will produce a standard 'flavour' that pervades most of the dishes that originate from that particular BIR or T/A.

As home cooks, we are not commercially constrained in the same way as BIR's run for profits are and there's no reason whatsoever why we should be following this practice at all. Particularly when you consider most of us will have in stock all the minor ingredients usually found in Commercial Curry Powder anyway.

It's interesting that NagaMark comes from the same background as I do - traditional, authentic Indian cuisine, where generic curry powders simply aren't used - and asks precisely the same question I did when I first arrived here. If we can produce great tasting (albeit not in the BIR style) Indian dishes without using generic curry powders, why suddenly in trying to replicate BIR dishes do we have to use it?

In my opinion (and it is only my opinion, anyone else is perfectly free to disagree with it) the BIR flavour is produced via cooking technique as long as the correct spices are used in conjunction with it. The use of generic commercial curry powders and/or garam masala is yet another dogmatic 'red herring'.

Quote from: George on January 25, 2012, 11:05 PM
I agree 100% with what you say. Unfortunately, Emin didn't qualify or explain his statement, like you have. He simply said European Bay leaves are rubbish.

Well George, it seems the forum inference levels are as variable as our tastebuds! 

Quote from: FatDuck on January 25, 2012, 03:48 PM
But, generally, wondering how healthy or unhealthy BIR types recipes are??

Generally not very healthy in my opinion - far too much oil and salt being used for my liking and I've put on weight since I've been experimenting with some of the recipes here - so be warned!

It seems particularly difficult to replicate the same kind of flavours as achieved in your local BIR without using fairly large quantities (relatively) of both ingredients, which seem to add a lot to the overall flavour. Fortunately my tolerance to salt is probably far lower than most peoples, so I can get away with less quantities of it, but I'm finding it tricky to reduce the oil content and get the same results.

The only healthy oil option is olive oil and I wouldn't use that in Indian cookery for two reasons - 1/ its flavour is too powerful for Indian spices and 2/ its smoke point is lower than veg/corn/nut oils and that means you can't really use it at the high temperatures required for BIR cookery.

Quote from: George on January 25, 2012, 03:19 PM
Your rude comment (above) detracts from the rest of your post. Anyone who thinks European bay leaves are rubbish has a lot of learning to do.

Blimey George, you're a bit nitpicky aincha!

My interpretation of that comment was that European Bay Leaves are rubbish when used in Indian Cuisine and particularly the BIR variety, which I must agree with. But that doesn't mean I think European Bay Leaves are rubbish when used in Mediterranean cookery - because that's where they work best flavour wise.

I think it's a fairly common mistake that new cooks to Indian cuisine make to use the European variety when they should be using the Indian variety - but it's a mistake borne out of innocence and lack of knowledge than anything else.

Quote from: natterjak on January 19, 2012, 07:38 PM
In other words I'm looking for more sweetness in order to achieve a balanced flavour.  But how?

There are two specific ingredients that add sweetness to BIR curries - oil and onions. The longer onions are cooked for, the sweeter they become and BIR kitchens regularly use fairly large amounts of oil in all stages of cooking - that's one of the reasons they get such sweetness in their dishes.

There are a few here who believe in cooking onions whole in the gravy, personally I'm not convinced by this, but a 3 hour cook time would certainly contribute to the sweetness of the onions.

So without really knowing what bases or what recipes you're using, as a general suggestion, try cooking your base gravy for longer than you usually do and try upping the amounts of oil used within it and for any final dishes you make.

Experimentation is the key I think but don't change too many things at once otherwise you may get your cause and effects mixed up.

It would be helpful and useful to everyone I think if you could feedback any experimentations you do in increasing sweetness in your dishes and what your conclusions might be.

Quote from: martinvic on January 22, 2012, 03:51 PM
As for the Garam Masala, maybe he'll put that in his book just for you.

I doubt that. If you actually read what I wrote, you'd see that he does not know the ingredients.  :

Quote from: ELW on January 22, 2012, 03:13 PM
You see the pattern

Indeed.

I came to the same conclusion with regards to that other site - far too much information is not available to access, but what I have seen isn't that much different from that shown here. That site is obviously being run for profitable purposes and I object to it on that basis alone. I don't have a problem with people making money, but I'm obviously unwilling to pay for something that is replicated elsewhere for free.

I doubt very much that RCR can offer any further insights into replicating BIR cuisine at home than can be found on this site. RCR appear to be dying a death as a result of it and need to consider leveraging an alternative revenue stream over and above that of providing information, information I might add that is pretty much already out there in the public domain.

RCR are a bit behind the times sadly.

Quote from: martinvic on January 22, 2012, 02:42 PM
Although I appreciate Julian's a busy man, it just doesn't look good specifically telling people to go to his site for the recipes, when they are not there IMHO.

In his earlier video's all the ingredients were listed at the end of the video's, but he doesn't seem to have done that on the recent Saag Aloo video. You can understand his reluctance to give this away for free when he's now working on producing an e-book with video's which he intends to sell. That's just sound business sense really.

The Saag Aloo video was full of great little tips on how to achieve that BIR 'flavour' which in itself was (for me) the most useful part of it. The lack of a list of ingredients is not particularly important when he tells you (and shows you) what goes into the dish itself. The actual technique of cooking it, for me is the most important part.

What does continue to irk me, is that he uses a Garam Masala, which (according to earlier videos) he buys in from another restaurant and therefore cannot reveal what actual ingredients are in it.

Overall though, his video's continue to be very useful in understanding BIR cookery techniques.

Quote from: fruitshoot14 on January 21, 2012, 11:07 PM
would be good to hear members thoughts on this and what you use etc and pics would be good :-) and just in general how you all store their spices.

Hi Jay

You ask a very good question.

I think what you're referring to is called a Dabba (the stainless steel pot) and Wala (the container of the stainless steel pots) in Indian.

I'm in exactly the same situation you are in and have far too many spice containers kicking about and was thinking recently about how to consolidate them all. I was looking at these on eBay, although I still haven't bough them yet -

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/250928270249?var=550057966447&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2648#ht_1738wt_1383

I prefer the larger size and wider necks these have - more convenient than the slim spice jars and I'll keep them all in a cupboard in the dark so they don't go stale quite as quickly if left open to the light.

Quote from: noble ox on January 20, 2012, 07:22 PM
Anyone know how a flavour enhancer works ? :

MSG is probably one of the best known flavour enhancers and it cons your taste buds into thinking something is tastier than it actually is. It kind of amplifies the flavour - particularly with meat. So by using MSG, you can actually get away with lower quality meat, then if you wern't using it.