I forgot to mention. I picked this excellent tip up off Manjulas website on You Tube. Instead of flouring your worktop or chopping board put the flour in large basin and just dip the dough in both sides and roll as normal. Far less mess all round. Your missus will love you for it too!  ;D

I added a bit more salt second time round, but forgot to put in the baking powder DOH! Third time round I tried the yeast but they were too light compared to what I am used to. I recon if I had added more salt first time round they would have been bang on for my local anyway. I think any difference would only come with a tandoor or pizza oven but for all the difference, I will stick to this method and maybe fork out ?40 for a decent griddle in the future.  ;D

QuoteI am starting to think more ingredients and technique rather than raw heat if you know what I mean 

Hi All,
I have read both articles regarding heat. Perhaps I didn't explain myself well in my last post.  :-X I know how important heat is as regards cooking but there is JerryM for instance that can get an exeptable result on an electric hob. What I am getting at is that I don't think we necessarily need to aim for as high a heat as the Chinese or BIR's as I don't think this is all the story. With a decent home gas burner I feel that you can achieve enough heat to get the job done. I feel the compromise is to use smaller portions to allow quicker pan recovery and a longer initial warm up time for the pan to gain and hold more heat. I feel this is what Jerry is possibly doing. Conversly if the ingredients aren't right more heat isn't going to make it taste any better. I struggled along with a burner of about 3kw and my wok has a lovely sheen gained while cooking many a chinese meal. Having cooked commercially myself I can say the main advantage of the equipment I used was getting large amounts hot,quick! A perfect example of the "technique" I am talking about is naan's. You can use UB's new naan recipe but stick them in the oven and you've got scones. Use UB's techniqe and hey presto! Again achievable without a tandoor and in the home. I don't doubt that the way Cory cooked his curry in the article he shared with us would have added to the flavour of his dish but without his experience with the bases and spices and cooking time he might have ended up with little more than burnt onions! Equally I would bet that he could turn up a stunning curry on a regular stove.       

I had to last night!  ;D  I couldn't resist!  ;D I knocked up a batch and they are the business. As good as my local TA. I think I would add a bit more salt and I omitted the sugar and yeast but the smell, the texture was all there. One more thing for those that want them to be like the absolute exact. Once cooked wrap them in tin foil and keep warm in a tea towel or something. They come out same as a TA delivery. This would explain why your restaurant ones are slightly crispier as you get them straight off the hob! Such a simple thing that I have over looked when making is to just flip em over never mind the grill!! As UB says Griddle or Tava up full plenty of heat before dropping them on. The dough mix as well wet and sticky almost but not quite bordering on a batter! Im afraid I blasphemed though and used a rolling pin as the dough went every direction but where I wanted it to. More Practice me thinks!! Once again though your right they would be better without being rolled as you get the unevenness. Your are genius sir!!! ;D Cory if you are reading this or SG promote this man!!!      

Hi all,
Jerry, I must admit I am leaning heavily toward the reclaimed oil as taste enhancer. I was so desperate to try unclebucks new naan recipe that I knocked up a quick sauce last night using the oil and it was fab. I initially reclaimed it from my base sauce and then fried a couple of currys in it as well and reclaimed. It has sat in my fridge for a couple of weeks and it gets better with time. Inevitably there is some sauce lying in the bottom of the oil container and I think this marination also helps flavour. It works for me!! Bobby I cook all my curries in my wok. The same one I use for my chinese cooking and it is fine. I think we all tend to shy away from applying prelonged heat to the wok or pan initially because it goes against most of what we have been taught during conventional cooking. As we know though it helps when cooking curry! I really think that it isn't necessary to get too high in the heat stakes as far as most curry cooking goes though if I were you Jerry I would seriously consider gas if only for the more instant heat. The biggest problem we have is temperature recovery when adding cold ingredients to the pan such as the base but members have also got around that one buy preheating the base first! The main reason I feel commercials have such high heat is they need to heat large amounts quickly. In less experienced hands we may just end up burning things instead of getting a result. I am starting to think more ingredients and technique rather than raw heat if you know what I mean  The more I look into asian cooking the more I find that we are able to replecate in the home. I was thinking about building my own tandoor but I have had good results cooking Tandoori food on my gas barbeque so I am thinking will the extra effort and expense really benefit me that much?!         

Hi,
Just wondering what contraptions our members have for actually cooking their curries? I have seen Cory's mega burner and wondered if anyone else has managed to buy or even invent the ultimate flaming device? Has anyone dared to fit a commercial wok burner into their house?  I have a new Cannon Range with gas wok burner that is ten times better than my old gas hob but I feel the cast wok stand absorbs more heat than it lets get to the pan. So I use the wire wok stand I got from my local Chinese cash and carry.

That's the finest looking naan I've seen yet! Do they taste & feel like the real deal?

Hi,
Thought I would get my tuppence worth! I used to own a pub and I am still a DJ. Might I suggest you do it buffet style? I see a lot of buffets in my line of work and I also see a lot of wasted food through over provision. If it were me I would do say 3 curries one being a Korma (dead easy) Bobby Bhuna's is a cracker and the recipe is on this forum. Do a hot one and say a CTM. Not everyone is going to like curry so you may only be cooking curry for 60 or 70. You can then buy say 10 Naans. If they are as big as up here you can slice them up into Dipping portions say 10 slices per naan? You are going to have to prepare in advance without question but I would make it part of the meal and not THE meal if you know what I mean. Think about things like samosas and bhajis that can also be heated and you can buy in buffet size nibbles. Spiced onions and popadoms can be prepared in advance and stored in the fridge. As has been said plenty of pilau rice. Cheap and easy to reheat. If you can get a bain marie on loan or hire you can reheat the curry in the kitchen and transport it to the bain marie to keep it hot. Do bit of plain fare as well such as crisps and sandwiches and maybe a sweet line such as cheese cake etc. This way you are not giving yourself tons of work and getting stressed (Been there!). After all you want a bit of time at the party too. One last thing! Not a golden rule but from experience you will always get no shows at a party. I work on a 70% sucess rate for turn out. Invite 100 get 70 or so. Hope this helps  ;D       

Hi all,
We need pioneers Bobby and every effort like this is step towards the greater good. I once had a curry in America that had base of caramelised onions! I managed to replicate it but the important point was that the onions had to be caramelised and used straight into the curry as a base and not added to a base recipe like you would ordinary onions. I tried adding them to a base and the flavour just gets lost. It takes ages for them to caramelise properly. That's is without cheating and adding sugar to speed up process. Took me over an hour of covered simmering and occasional stirring to get that lovely brown colour but it was worth it. Here's a thought that just struck me. If only I had reclaimed the oil first before blitzing ! looking at your posts Bobby it's seems your up here in Scotland?  ;D

As per my latest post in the ultimate curry thread. I think it has something to do with the oil or a variant there of. I know the chinese season their oil and the BIR chefs have a hot pot of oil on the stove top just as the chinese do. When I cracked open that reclaimed oil container I knew if I could transfer that smell to a curry that would be it. Just as a curry often tastes better the next day I think the maturing process might well have something to do with it aswell. Maybe it's just as simple as some base fried in really hot oil and spices allowed to cool and develope and added at the end of the curry?  As reagrds the existing curry recipies we have I totally agree. I tried Bobby's Korma recipe and it was knock out. Best korma I've done so far all thanks to this forum. Most of all simple and quick as you would expect from a BIR. What we must always remember we are looking at a pre prepared ingredient as BIR's just don't have time to fry out things for 1/2 an hour during service. Time is money!