I'm glad you've brought this up nj, I'm still not sure what goes on in the pan at the initial stages of a curry regarding the ingredients, let alone any science behind it.    I know it's about smoothing the harsh edges of the ingredients, but which ones are most important?

8 Ingredients

Oil/salt/Garlic/spice/ tomato paste/base gravy/methiGinger being optional call it 7)

No tomato paste used in the Kushi recipe's( anyone else have views on Kushi)

If so it could be 6 ingredients:

I once swapped mix powder for Natco Garam Masala, & produced the taste. I also recently flambed the pan by accident, complete with Homer Simpson shriek & turned out a horrible raw tasting curry. Assuming everything is cooked(harder than I thought)I think the cooling process on different foods is where the taste comes from, rather than the age. I produced a decent tasting curry, tasted in the pan(rawness gone), serving it only 5 mins later it had changed into a magical bir dish. It's very odd. I'm not sure we could find too many people who can explain this to us, it looks to me like purely a by product of hot & fast cooking.

I'd love to hear from anyone who can produce the bir taste on that low long sunday fry up heat, I've found it impossible so far. Or from anyone who can produce the goods without tomato paste?

I know it's been mentioned upteen times, but I think the cooking of the garlic is more important than I 1st thought.
I'm on 99% now, the missing 1% being the cooking formula/rules to provide some kind of consistency. Let's try & rule in or out the slow & low method, there's no better place than cr0 to do it 
Regards
ELW

PS. I use Salkim Tom paste or White Tower, which tastes far less harsh to me than the Italian stuff from Asda & nothing like the tube concentrate 

Quote from: Aussie Mick on March 26, 2012, 05:43 PM

Quote from: Salvador Dhali on March 26, 2012, 05:37 PM

Quote from: alarmist10 on March 26, 2012, 11:20 AM
Sorry for the typo SD.......your cooking days should have read "Friday & Saturday".

Quote from: alarmist10 on March 26, 2012, 11:17 AM
SD

"Is everything all right, sir?"

Pause...

"No it f***ing isn't!"

;D ;D ;D
Your dad sounds like my sort of person. Good on him.....say it like it is....always the best way to go. 

;D, my old man leaned over the table and tore an uneaten Glasgow, continental quilt size naan bread in half, before it was "dished up to someone else". Embarrassing his son was his forte.

I remember hearing stories of people running out of their houses into the street with exploding home brew bottles .
I've drank it but never made it. Definitely going to get into it when I'm organised. It's a good complimentary thread to run alongside the rest of the stuff on here. I'm sure a few more codes could be cracked. How close the recipe's will get me to the real thing I'll need wait & see

ELW

Edit- great post beachbum

On the subject of madras, my local's version(same as chewtikka's), has a hint of sourness down to the lemon, a day old the sourness has gone & it smells of lemon & tastes more like lemon flavouring. The tomato tastes more tangy also, very odd 
When the taste magically appears, I can't help but swagger about the kitchen a bit, anybody comes in I'll point to it & say "taste that" out of the corner of my mouth. It's quite an achievement  ;D

Got a flambe yesterday up there with chriswg, nearly singed the coving & downlighter, lots of swearing  . I'd be more comfortable dealing with a chip pan fire!

Compliments to the chef there  , I do get all curried out from time to time, but it passes quickly

agreed, there's definitely some strange things going regarding the bir taste. The "Glasgow taste" comes right out of nowhere & seems to start as the dish cools. I'm still not 100% settled on what exactly is going on & whether the cooking of the garlic plays a bigger part than I thought. Adding a duff curry back to a pan with another small touch of GG/spice always hits the mark 2nd time around for me

The Ashoka Banjarra paste, although a pain in the a**e to make, adds even more weirdness when a dish is cooked correctly, I can't recommend any higher

ELW

Quote from: curryhell on March 21, 2012, 07:04 PM
how many more brewers / ex brewers are on here then??? ;D

Never tried it, just never got round to it, nows as good a time as any. The Dave Line book looked brilliant when I bought it years ago. Forgot I had it until today. If I remember correctly, he said he got alot of the recipe's from the brewers themselves. Any report from the book?
ELW

Quote from: curryhell on March 21, 2012, 05:43 PM

Quote from: Salvador Dhali on March 21, 2012, 09:14 AM

Quote from: Aussie Mick on March 21, 2012, 09:01 AM
I mash brewed form about 1981 to 1986 then got fed up.

So did I for quite a while.  The only real way to get proper beer in fact.

Quote
I used to follow Dave Line's recipes "Brewing beers like those you buy"  I think Dave (God rest his soul) would have been the equivalent of Pat Chapman in the brewing world. His recipes were nearly there. lol

I think DL delivered instantly.  From my recollection of the several beers i brewed follwing his recipes every one was absolutely spot on.   I particularly enjoyed the white shield and fullers ESB.  PC however, didn't quite deliver to the same extent unfortunately.  Out of interest has there ever been any work to surpass DL's iconic text??

If someone's not afraid of long hours & enthusiastic enough then why not. Adding your cooking skills & cuisine to an already established eating place, be it cafe or whatever catering for the lunch time market, may be a fairly unique selling point. Id love to see lunch size bir portions in a roll n sausage shop tbh. Whatever way, at least you won't be handing out credit to customers....thats when the the fun really disappears & the stress begins.....30 days?....60 days?....90 days?....never?..good luck with whatever you do, no one would do anything otherwise 

Separate Dave Line thread would be great, I have the 1985 version somewhere but never had a bash, could be an excellent thread!

Quote from: Hilly on March 18, 2012, 02:30 PM
Wow, wow, wow...

Blade... Great recipe. I'm new to BIR cooking so I've been slowly working my way through the list of recipes on this site. Chewys base sauce was first...top notch. Then Chewys madras.... again, top notch! Then I tried the holy grail.... good chicken tikka and this has completed the list.

I followed the original recipe as closely as possible even though I read some of the changes / improvements from other members on here. I stuck with tandoori paste, the only thing I left out mainly because I didn't have any was methi and to be honest I don't think I missed it but if I had any I would certainly add it in next time.

Going to make a massive batch this week and shove it in the freezer because I don't think the portion I made today will last long!

Glad to see your enjoying the recipe's Hilly. I've stopped using yoghurt completely & switched to water as in blades recipe, for the time being with good results. I always make extra as it has an addictive quality & disappears quickly
ELW

Good point MM, I missed that completely. I think it's JB, cooking the bhuna. It's a point in the cooking where I am prone to flinch a bit, but may explain partly why a bhuna has a fairly powerful flavour

regards
ELW