The books are a sham. They claim to offer resturant recipies, and they do not. Their age does not excuse them in any way. They were bullsh*t then and bullsh*t now. They are a complete con.

Yeah, if you are making regular dishes like Madras, Bhuna, Jalfrezi etc, then  don't bother with ghee at all.

Vegetable ghee is utterly pointless; it has no particular taste, and just solifies as your curry cools down, making it look horrible. Don't bother with it.

Butter ghee is used in most BIRs melted on nan breads. It is used in dished like 'butter chicken', etc. There seems to be an idea amongst the great unwashed that BIRs use it extensively, but this is nonsense. I've only ever been to one BIR where it had been used for oil (in a madras). It was digusting. I hate ghee, and would not eat BIR food if it was used. Furthermore, I am allergic to cows milk anyway, so I wouldn't be able to eat BIR food if they used ghee.

Just stick to rapseed or sunflower oil.

Hi. I'm going to be cooking one of my curries for a vege on the weekend, so I will need to bung in  200g  or so of something other than cubded, pre cooked chicken

What do people here use and recommend for this? I was thinking maybe an equal mix of potioe cubes, cauliflower florets, and green pepper chunks?

Quote from: George on May 19, 2005, 02:25 AM

Quote from: thomashenry on May 18, 2005, 09:31 AM
I've made curry every night for the last month (really)

How much weight have you gained, if you don't mind me asking? I'd be concerned about salt and certain other factors too. Every visitor to this forum should be grateful to generous pioneers like you for putting so much effort into this quest. But, pray don't harm your health, let alone become a martyr, heaven forbid, in the process.

I've not gained any weight that I've noticed. I'm a pretty skinny bloke (6'2", 11 stone), and have been the same weight since I was about 16, so a month won't do my any harm! I think after this month is up, I'm going to cut back to one batch of curry sauce a month (hence 6 dishes). This doesn't include authentic indian food, whihc I cook a lot (and is very healthy )

Quote from: Mark J on May 19, 2005, 09:53 AM
Did you leave the curry for a few hours after cooking it?

Not that long, more like 10. The one I did the night before was left for 30; so I will revert to that.

A new idea has struck me; garam masala, we have generally agreed is not a good thing. I've got a small jar of home made stuff, made to Dhillon spec. Its very similar to my East End packet. From memory, it contained coriander seeds, cumin, two colours of cardomman, cloves, black pepper, cassis bark, and nutmeg.

Coriander seeds and cumin seeds are friendly. Black cardommans have the smokey aroma that we often talk about, but no-one has found a way of harnessing them for this yet. Cassia bark/cinammon is a flavour I've definatly identified in most of my favoruite BIR dishes.

Therefore, I am going to make a new batch of home made garam masala, but will omit the cloves, pepper and nutmeg. I think these are the 'baddies' in the mix. Cumin, coriander, caroomans + cassia bark ought to be a lot more up our street.

As ever, will report on success/failure of this.

Quote from: joe2 on May 18, 2005, 08:05 PM
>> Generous helping of very well cooked onions >>

My only concern about this is that all the best currys i've had are a very smooth gravy, with no 'bits' in it at all.

Other peoples' currys may have bits in though.

Vindaloos are generally smooth, but other dishes that I order in BIRs invariably have thicker sauces with stuff in them I find, apart from one particular curry house (which is atrocious!).

My attempt at copying my BIR success met with failiure last night; I failed to re-create the magic, although I was not far off. Ive got 4 more nights of my current batch of base sauce, then I'm off the curries for a while, so fingers crossed.

Quote from: pete on May 18, 2005, 05:58 PM
The main reason I think quantity plays a part, is because you get told so, and we have all found difficulties recreating what we want.
Take this thread from Mark J:-
https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=279.0

Quote
"He was adamant that it cant be done at home and seemed to indicate it was to do with quantities, he said the amounts of spice are very important."

Why would people say these things to us, when they are trying to help us?
There are loads of other quotes like this one, including some I have posted.
I don't understand

The 'quantity matters' doesn't hold any water with me. When you order a dish in a BIR, they make 1 serving of that dish for you. They make a dish on the same scale as we make them at home. They are not making a motherload, where margins for error are much higher.

The area where it is at least logically possible that quantity plays a role is in making base sauce: and I think Dhiillon base sauce, made accurately is 100% suitable for BIR use anyway.

Quote from: Blondie on May 18, 2005, 09:55 AM
Keep up the good work, can't wait for your findings.

Well, I've done it 3 times in 25 days now, and I'm not gettin excited yet, as the last two times I 'did it', I was then unable to do it the next day! This time I really want to consolidate what I'm doing.

It also has to be said that while this was a perfect replica of Bhuna from Bengal Spice, this is not my fav BIR bhuna by a long shot! haha

what are your qs btw?

Quote from: joe2 on May 17, 2005, 10:32 PM
Re: The taste we desire can only be achieved by cooking in quantities.

This is not true. I have achieved 'the taste', and reporduced perfect imiatation takeaway dishes 3 times now. I've made curry every night for the last month (really), with the quest of hitting the nail on the head. I've done it three times - what I can't do is reliably reproduce it. As a result, I'm unable (so far) to  identify exactly what it was bout what I did one time that wa right, and what was not etc.

Last nights was my best attempt so far, without doubt. As ever, I used Dhillon sauce ( was a bit short on onions so topped the weight up with a pepper and a stick of celery), I also added 3 heaped teaspoons of sugar into it. I followed the general principle of Mark J's curry house viewing.

I now consider the pre fried onions to as important as the base sauce. I chop 3-4 onions very finley - some finely dived, some finley sliced into small strips. I fry these gently in plenty of oil, with a bit of base sauce, and a desert spoon of *cinnamon* on them. I slowly fry them for 30-40 minutes, until they are totally soft, see through, and sweet.

My cooking procedure was as follows : hot oil -> stiry fry garlic paste -> heaped ladle of onions -> creamed tomatoes -> spice (only 1/2 a teapsoon) -> fenugreek -> salt-> chilli powder -> Ladel of curry sauce -> 1.2 chopped tomato-> sprinkling of coriander -> 3 more ladles of curry sauce -> 3 mins cooking or so. I popped in the pre cooked meat, put the whole thing in a takeaway dish, srpinkled it with coriander, put the lid on, and set it aside. I went to get a beer from the offy, and ate the curry about 1 hour later, after heating it in the micro wave. It was a 100% spot on replica of chicken Bhuna,  as served by the Bengal Spice, Oxford.

The things notable to me about my method this time were
1. Generous helping of very well cooked onions, falvouried with cinnamon - I used a lot more of these than in previous recipies
2. I flambed the pan a LOT (still dont know if this makes any difference, will have to conduct an experiment)
3. Smalll, (tiny) amount of spice used. I get the feeling that it didn't matter too much what the spice was; this time I used a regualr 'curry shop masala'
4. Tomato
5. Much more consiervative amount of chopped corinader used than I usually have.
6. Leaving it for 30 mins, leacing the house, coming to it fresh - Im sure this gives the dishj time to mellow and cool out, the flavours to come through in it.

I'm really going to nail this over the next 6 days. I intend getting exact measurments, cooking times, and eventually photos.