Quote from: Curry King on March 28, 2005, 09:25 PM
One big thing was that he said scooping the oil of and reusing it was a no no for one its against health and safety regs, anyone know anything about this??

Yeah, like they're going to worry about that!

It's against health and safety regs to leave any food uncovered or where necessary unrefrigerated overnight. But that doesn't stop them leaving the base sauce out. They are well aware that as long as it is boiled for ten minutes the next day it will not have any ill effect.

Unless there's an environmental health inspector standing over their shoulder they will do whatever is most convenient for their business. What they say they do is one thing, what they actually do is entirely another.

Quote from: Curry King on March 28, 2005, 02:52 PM
First taste I thought mmm nice but not right then I tried it again and it did have the taste, the consistancy and look was spot on

QuoteHe did say though that you cant reproduce it at home, hes tried it before himself and couldnt get it exactly the same,? he didnt really go into detail as to why but im happy that he wasn't lying or leaving anything out.

These two statements are contradictory. If it can't be done at home how did it have that special taste?

Quote from: Mark J on March 28, 2005, 11:27 AM
When I next make a base up I will keep it in my pantry, not freeze it and reuse the spiced oil. Book me an ambulance for 2 weeks time!

Don't worry about it Mark. As long as your base is water, vegetables and spices only, it is quite safe to leave it out unrefrigerated for 24 hours or longer even in summertime. Just make sure it is boiled for ten or fifteen minutes on use. Don't risk it if there is any meat or meat juice though.

Quote from: ghanna on March 28, 2005, 11:44 AM
may be it is the fermintation in the gravy

Yes, definitely. As I posted elsewhere, leave the base sauce to rest for at least a day before use. It won't give that taste we are after but it is one more link in the chain towards that goal!

Quote from: ghanna on March 28, 2005, 11:19 AM
can smell is four CORIANDER , MINT , scared basil, dill.

I think that the use of sacred basil is probably unecessary. It has only been available in the uk in any quantity in the last fifteen years since Thai restaurants have become popular and so the imports have increased. Before that it would have been very hard to obtain, and it is quite expensive even now. Some base sauces have star anise added which has the same aniseed flavour of thai basil and has been available in the UK for a long time because the chinese and indian/pakistani use it.

I'm not sure about the dill because I've never used it. Do you know what its predominant flavour is?

More thoughts on the curry base sauce.

If you read through the various posts, it seems to be the concensus that the oil spooned off the final curry is put back into the base sauce pot. Clearly, as mentioned elsewhere, this will have an effect over the course of a night's cooking.

When I spoon the oil off my curries I'm really careful not to pick up any of the curry too. Chefs don't have the luxury of time so they will be less careful and some of the curry must go back into the pot each time, perhaps one or two teaspoons?. But this could easily be copied if each time you make a curry you freeze a teaspoon of sauce and when you have say ten teaspoons from different curries add this to your normal base sauce and boil for another hour or two.

I know Pete posted that he obtained a base sauce which had that taste and was quite thick. I think perhaps he got a sample that had been on for some time and so had thickened and changed colour and flavour because of the added teaspoons of curry sauces.

I think this would account for peoples experience of their curries having that taste if they go in the late evening and sometimes not when they go earlier on. It's not just because the sauce has been simmering longer, it's because it has added richness from a night's worth of added curry sauces.

Also, again as mentioned elsewhere, be sure to let your base sauce rest for at least a day?before use. I think to emulate the curry house technique I would make the base sauce, rest it for a day, heat it back up and add the ten or so teaspoons of the saved curries (you'd have to guess how much in proportion to the quantity of base you have made, I could calculate it if anyone wants to try it), simmer for an hour and let it rest another day before final use.

Who knows it might just come down to technique after all! ( but I personally doubt it).

Hi ghanna

What do you think the herb mix might be. I can only think of corainder leaf, mint and methi. What else is there?

Quote from: pete on March 27, 2005, 10:27 PM

Quote

You would have litres of oil in the pot
LITRES!!
That means anything added would be deep fried.
That would affect it considerably.
What do you think?

In any cuisine, long simmering is always associated with dishes where meat is involved because it tenderises and flavours the meat and also brings the meat flavour into the dish. For the base sauce we're talking about simmering what amounts to a spiced vegetable stew for four hours or more! No meat, as far as we know, is used.

There would be no possible reason for this....unless there is some ingredient in their base sauce that requires prolonged simmering to break down its structure, or extract its flavour. So it goes back to things we've already mentioned like including chicken carcass perhaps. It would have to be carcass, so that it could be removed easily before blending and of course some of the meat would make its way into the base and get blended too! But I think this is a step too far, they might not worry too much about serving veggies a base sauce containing a stock cube, but would they really add whole meat?

Can you think of anything else that would require this amount of cooking to have an effect? If so you probably have the secret ingredient.

On the other hand if the base sauce is just a vegetable stew and there really isn't a missing ingredient then four hours cooking will make little difference compared to one hours cooking for example. So why do they cook it for so long?

When you say 'litres of oil' do you mean in the base sauce? There's no frying going on once the water is added to the pot because the temperature is too low. But you made me wonder why they include it at all. It could be that they add it at the beginning in which case they must be frying some ingredient(s) first and lots of it if eye witness accounts of the amount of oil used are to be believed.

Otherwise, because it sits on top of the veg/water mix, its only effect can be to reduce evaporation from the pot during the four hours of simmering so that they don't have to watch it so closely for topping up. Even after blending the emulsion formed is not at a high enough temperature to allow any frying. The added benefit of this of course is that you get that spiced red oil which can now be used to make the curries.

Anyway the short answer is that no, there is no frying going on once the water has been added.

O.K. I need one woman to distract the chap who shows us around and one bloke to help me drill a hole in the floor above the kitchen for the hairline fibre optic camera, we can do this people!? ?;D

http://www.findaproperty.com/agent.aspx?agentid=0033&opt=prop&pid=21956

The woman will have to be very inventive as four hours will be required!? ?

Quote from: pete on March 27, 2005, 08:07 PM

Quote

I had a bag of msg which I tried in various recipes.
I noticed no marked difference.

Pete, did you put it in at the oil stage so that it fried, or later on when there was sauce so that it boiled? This can sometimes lead to a different flavour effect.

Has anyone who has been into a restaurant kitchen ever noticed two bowls of white stuff in their ingredients that perhaps you would have just assumed were both salt, but one might have been msg?

Quote from: Mark J on March 27, 2005, 08:46 PM
One of the reasons for the mystery could well be because the secret ingredient is quite unsavoury? e.g. MSG? or reused oil

I suggested this earlier, see my onion skin post!