Quote from: George on December 23, 2011, 02:47 PMHere's my original post, with photos of the pan, before and after:
https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=4983.msg47788#msg47788

Excellent job there George and thanks for the tip. I'll have a closer look at mine and see if I can achieve a similar result. Other than that, it might just be worth buying a cheap new one like you did and just taking off the non-stick coating.

Many thanks.

Good Karma!

Quote from: Razor on December 23, 2011, 02:44 PM
Certainly, you will struggle to get the answers of most BIR chefs and I suspect that this is simply because they themselves don't really know the science, they indeed use the Monkey sees, Monkey does method.

Ray

I understand fully where you're coming from here. But my point is and will continue to be, that there are certain 'fundamentals' you must know, and other things you don't have to necessarily fully understand to produce good results. My point is where that line is drawn is blurred and what the 'fundamentals' are and what they aren't.

What these 'fundamentals' are and aren't is not being defined.

What makes it worse is that there are some that are trying to argue that some of these 'fundamentals' take caramelisation for example does not have to be understood - I'm arguing to the contrary - caramelisation must be understood to produce the correct BIR flavours.

Your point with regards to Julians 'tip' on allowing chicken to rise to room temperature before cooking is just that - a tip, that helps you produce better dishes. It doesn't, will not, and won't change the overall 'flavour' of the dish you're cooking and therefore knowing and understanding the why's and wherefores of that is entirely irrelevant to the overall flavour of the dish you're cooking.

I'm interested primarily in flavours and how they're achieved within a dish. Indian cookery is particularly complex with regards to flavours because so many things can influence them, by understanding what these influences are, you can harness and control those flavours and produce the one's you want and the one's you don't. Given that BIR currys and traditional Indian food layers flavours over each other to produce one complex one, it's imperative to understand and control the influences over these layers.

If you don't and can't you'll always be a 'Monkey see's, Monkey does kind of cook. And with respect, this site is very good at producing those kind of cooks.

I just thought I'd let you know that I made your bhuna pretty much to your specification, but without the Chalice oil and I thought it was quite excellent.

The main difference was that I pre-cooked my lamb in some of the marinade with added water and simmered it for about an hour and a half until just tender. I then added it along with your instructions. For me personally, I'd make a few tweaks for my own taste, but I'd highly recommend this as being a very worthwhile dish to try as per your instructions.

Well done for coming up with such a great dish.

Good Karma

Quote from: Cory Ander on December 23, 2011, 02:07 PMSpicey, I think you will probably need to be more diplomatic and "entice" answers from members rather than to "bludgeon" them for answers (yes, yes, pot calling the kettle black once more, I know)! 

I think my time will be far better spent in the kitchen learning through experimentation, something I've always done, than bothering to extract the misinformation and entrenched contradictory opinion that pervades this forum.

That's a little unfair on a certain few individuals, but sadly true for the majority.

Anyway, carry on!

Quote from: Razor on December 23, 2011, 01:40 PMUnderstanding the science is without doubt, good knowledge to be in possession of but for me, and this is only my opinion, technique is key and if the technique has been developed through scientific means, then great but I don't really need to know that, I'll leave that to Heston ;D

Ray

As far as I'm concerned technique and understanding the theory behind it go hand in hand. If you don't understand the theory behind what you're doing, you're resigning yourself forever to being a 'Monkey see's, Monkey does' kind of cook. This means people can only create a successful dish by slavishly following a recipe word for word. As soon as they depart from that recipe it goes wrong. Why? because they simply do not understand the principles that underpin it. This is precisely why you get so much conflicting advice and opinion on this site - because people just do not understand what they're doing as soon as they depart from a recipe.

I've seen so many comments on this site like 'I saw a BIR chef do this...and as soon as I tried to replicate it I couldn't get the same flavour'. No shit sherlock! That's because you don't understand the technique that was being used!

Yet as soon as I try to push to understand precisely what's going on in creating a certain flavour I not only get people entrenching their views, and defending them, but trying to convince me their way is right through dogma! In other words, I know I'm doing this right instinctively because I've seen Ali the master BIR chef doing the same thing - bullshit!

If people here want to continue the 'Monkey see's, Monkey does' route and all the restrictions that entails and are not interested in understanding what's going on - good luck to them. Personally I do not and do not want the restrictions of having to slavishly follow a recipe and want to go off and create my own dishes.

Personally I don't see that as being such a bad ambition to have.

Quote from: Cory Ander on December 23, 2011, 01:29 PMI trust this will suffice as a summary of my opinion? 

Yes absolutely and thank for you at least having the courtesy to input some useful and interesting information and links to others, even if it was done with a smattering of flippancy. I was hoping you might expand your thoughts on your experimentation with high flame gas burners to achieve that smokey flavour with the 'caramelisation' achieved with uncoated aluminium pans as advocated by Julian, but it's not a problem.

I can see that this subject for the vast majority of more 'experienced' forumistas is either 'too instinctive' or 'too boring' to bother discussing. Carry on with the flippancy, snideness, sniping and arguing the toss over whether a micron of special x powder will transform my secret 'mix' powder to greatness.  : : :

Quote from: Cory Ander on December 23, 2011, 11:49 AM
Just my (considered) opinion Spicey 

And as such you're more than entitled to express it.

However, what you need to remember I think is that you're probably far more advanced in achieving the results you want than most people here (at least in my opinion and from what I've read of your posts) and that whilst you may have the knowledge and ability to achieve all sorts of things using a variety of cooking utensils, because you understand the principles and processes unpinning what you want to achieve - many others here do not!

Therefore the use of a specific cooking utensil for you, may not make one iota's difference to you - for other lesser mortals and beginners and those less knowledgeable, the simple process of changing a cooking pan may make the world of difference to what they create.

This is one of the reasons why there's so much conflicting opinion - everyone has different experiences, knowledge, techniques and so on. What's good for one person may not be good for another.

Quote from: Cory Ander on December 23, 2011, 11:49 AM
I share your frustration, in this regard, but we have myriad members with myriad (and usually conflicting) experiences and opinions about almost any topic you'd care to mention! 

Exactly!

Quote from: Cory Ander on December 23, 2011, 11:49 AM
The secret is, I think, to sift through the opinions and form your own....

And that's exactly what I do. If that means I have to be quite brutal sometimes in the way I extract information and challenge preconceived notions then sobeit. I'm after truth and knowledge, sometimes you have to be brutal to get that (and thick skinned) there's too many ego's that can get in the way.

Quote from: Cory Ander on December 23, 2011, 11:49 AM
But, back to pans.  Do you SERIOUSLY believe that a non-coated aluminium pan is a MUST and that nothing else will do the job (for whatever reasons members might care to mention)?   :

For you? No. For more experienced members of the forum who've developed their own methods through trial, error and experience? No. For less experienced, newer members, members with little to no cooking experience, probably a big yes. They need to start from the basics and cut out as many variables as possible in achieving what they're looking for.

Cooking in an aluminium pan without a non-stick surface is undoubtedly one of the key skills/techniques any new aspiring BIR cook needs to master and understand, long before they start fiddling about with the dozens of different base sauces on offer!

Can you now see just how useful this thread and discussion is turning out to be? Not just for me, but I'm sure for many Cr0 members and yet someone tried to kill it by being off topic? Silly.

Good Karma!

Quote from: George on December 23, 2011, 11:22 AMIf you have a non-stick aluminium pan, try to remove the coating, like I did.

Hello there George, thanks for your input.

Out of curiosity, how did you go about removing the non-stick coating on your pan?

I'd pretty much already decided to change my old pan to something else and was considering the De Buyer Mineral B pans as a possible alternative and was curious about the 'Maillard' reaction you could achieve with these pans and wondered if somehow that was linked to caramelisation and BIR flavours. I then came across this thread and saw Julians video recommending standard aluminium pans without any non-stick coating as the way to go, hence my questions with regards to what people were using.

I've now read through Cory's linked thread about achieving that 'smoky, caramel' flavour using a high heat 'wok-style' burner and can't help but wonder whether Julian is achieving the same effect by simply allowing the base sauce to 'caramelise and burn' slightly in the uncoated aluminium pans he recommends. Or is it the greater flaming that occurs using the higher heat 'wok-style' burner? Given that you can achieve that 'flaming' without the need for high heat, it suggests the latter in my opinion.

I'm sorry to labour this point, but for me and my cooking, it's this 'smoky' flavour that's always been missing and is therefore of great interest to me in how I can recreate it.

Quote from: Cory Ander on December 23, 2011, 08:13 AMBut I strongly suspect that any pan (including nonstick pans) will do the job more than adequately.

I, for one, can definitely "caramelise" (or read "burn"!  ) anything in any pan, without too much trouble!   

I see. So more conflicting advice then?

Quote from: chriswg on December 23, 2011, 08:11 AMThe real reason BIR's use aluminium pans is because they are cheap and they heat up really fast.

The original question wasn't why they use Aluminium pans per se, but why they used Aluminium Pans that did not have a non-stick coating on them. A subtle difference, but a distinctive one. I've been using an old 24cm aluminium frying pan with a non-stick coating specifically for making curries in, I now find out that, that is not the correct type of pan I should be using. It's still an aluminium pan, it still heats up quickly and it's still cheap to buy, but it's not the right type.

Quote from: chriswg on December 23, 2011, 08:11 AM
As I've said so many times there is no secret anything, you just need to learn the techniques and that takes time

And how are you supposed to achieve those techniques if you're not using the correct type of cooking utensils considered essential in achieving them?