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

Quote
There was meant to be a cancer link to msg.
I stopped using it a few years back.

Pete if you are worried about cancer don't eat anything in a curry house that is red in colour. The colourings used are ponceau, tartrazine and sunset yellow. They are all carcinogens and tartrazine in particular has been known to kill asthmatics. There was a report that said some places exceeded the recommended use by ten or more times!

Did anyone who attended the brick lane demos actually eat in at the Bengal BEFORE going on the course? This is what I would have done because if their curries have that special flavour and I then made the same one on the demo and it didn't, I would be pretty miffed. I really think that they are just doing enough to make it all look authentic, but they are actually missing something out.

Also if these guys have e-mail it's almost certain they have googled for their course or restaurant name and will already be watching this group, which could explain why they are not responding to your e-mails. They don't want to be pestered for the missing technique/ingredients perhaps?


A note to the admin(if you read this): why have you got an american spell checker on a British web site?

QuoteEach chef has his own recipe and little tricks that make his gravy different from someone else's which they keep close to their chests, this is probaly due to the fact that if the restaurant owner finds out how to make it they would get replaced by someone cheaper, maybe.

Unfortunately that just backs my assertion that there could be a secret ingredient in the base sauce. There's just no winning with this one. We'll go round and round with guesses and suppositions because we just don't know!

QuoteI think its all about technique and practice rather than any secret ingredient

I definitely think this is wrong. The techniques used in the final curry preparation have been witnessed and verified by at least four people in this group at different establishments. It seems to boil down to:

1.very high heat from start to finish (not normally reproducable at home as the curry house gas rings put out at least five times the BTU as the largest ring on a domestic gas hob). If you're using an electric hob you've got no chance of reproducing the required heat.

2.loads of oil, possibly of the spiced variety from the top of the base sauce, or from the frier

3.browning the garlic/ginger adequately

4.two or three small ladles of base sauce with at least one of these reduced to almost dry consistency

5.igniting the oil/sauce during the final cooking (I briefly got a look in two kitchens many years ago and I saw this in both)

6.pre-cooking anything that can't be cooked in about 10 mins, which is the average final cooking time for the finished curry

Did I miss anything there?

The point is, of all the things we know the techniques of the final curry preparation are the best known because they have been witnessed and confirmed by several people. Therefore I doubt that technique is the missing factor, assuming of course that we are all capable of faithfully reproducing this technique each time.

So if we've got the techniques right, and we've got the base sauce right, and we have people who have recipes for the final curries witnessed at restaurants, but still cannot reproduce the missing aroma/flavour of the takeaway curry, what's left?

Hi Curry King

QuoteI don't think theres a secret ingredient as already been said how could it have been kept so secret.?

Easily. No one has seen the base sauce as used by a restaurant for its own curries being made from start to finish, so they can put anything in it that they have not told you about.

Several people here have seen quite a few different curries made either in demos or watching in open kitchens, so they've seen the techniques and other general ingredients but not, I repeat not, the making of the base sauce.

Until someone actually sees this made it remains the only possible place to 'hide' a necessary ingredient. Equally of course, if someone did get to do this and there was clearly no secret ingredient being used and a curry made with this sauce has that missing something we are looking for, then it would be case proved and we could move on.

Or as mentioned by someone earlier, buy a batch of a curry houses base sauce and use that for your curries. If the missing aroma/flavour is still missing then that would be proof that it's not the base sauce that we need to work on.

I just can't understand how some people here can post with what seems like certainty that there isn't a 'secret' ingredient in the base sauce.
There's no logic in your arguments.

Where's your proof that there's no 'secret' ingredient in the curry when no one has ever seen the base sauce being made?

QuoteI added some home made chicken stock.
Very tasty but missing the flavour still.

Whoa there Pete, not so fast!

You've only done half the cooking. To decide whether it has made a difference or not you will have to make a full curry with that sauce because the rapid frying during the final cooking or the combination of the sauce with the final added spices or perhaps the flaming of the pan could be the trigger for the missing flavour and aroma.

I'm not covinced that it's possible to tell whether you have cracked it just by making the base alone. I know I'm teaching you to suck eggs here, but you have to be really scientific about this. All tests for new base sauces should be done by making a single curry that you are most familiar with each and every time and there must be no changes to the recipe other than the new base sauce. Ideally it would also be a simply spiced curry to minimise any further ingredient permutations, so ideally something like a madras.

Unfortunately it may be that there are two or three things we are missing and that any two say of the three will just not work on their own. Of course that opens up numerous permutations, which is why you and I and everyone else have such a tough time of it.

As far as using stock goes, I think that it would have to be fairly subtle or at some point some meat eater who also happens to eat the veggie dishes would have sussed it and the restaurant would be up in court pretty quick. I'm not saying it isn't used, just that its effect would have to be subliminal and not in your face.

I think using the chicken pre-cooking stock in the base sauce is a reasonable thing to do, unless you are a veggie, but your friend and mine Mr Pat Chapman says that they just throw it away. Personally I'd say that's a vote for using it! Was it you that saw the chef spoon off the excess oil from a chicken curry and return it to the base sauce pot? Clearly this indicates that they are not too bothered about mixing meat juices into the base sauce.

QuoteI no longer feel that the missing flavour can be made by prolonged boiling.
Sometimes I feel the aroma is there before I puree it.
That kills it dead.

The prolonged boiling may still be necessary and if the reports from real chefs are to be believed, definitely is necessary. You can be sure they wouldn't waste time and money boiling for four or more hours if just one or two would do. It may be, however, that it only makes a difference when the missing ingredient(s) are included in the base sauce. It's a bit of a catch 22 situation.

At the risk of repeating myself, the real problem at the moment is that no one has witnessed the making of the base sauce in its entirity and so guess-work rules. Round and round we go!

QuoteHow come if we have 161 members only 11 have voted?

I was wondering that too, but it just reflects the normal use of forums. There is small a core of regular posters, a few others who dip in and out occasionaly, and then the majority who just lurk until they feel they have something useful to add to the discussion.

QuoteThis was the recipe I got emailed and he seemed rather fed up at me not being satisfied with my results!

Pete, the man's a charlatan. What makes you think that showing him up for what he is would make him happy?

He may have been able to get away with his half baked recipes twenty years ago when there was no alternative, but you only have to look at this site and not least of all your own efforts to see how things have moved on, while he still peddles the same old rejigged recipes.

Given what you know of techniques, base sauces etc, I'm surprised you give the man any time at all.

I had another thought about onions. If you've been doing this curry thing for long enough you will inevitably have read about only using this type of onion or that type of onion. Red onions are commonly quoted as being the only ones to use for example and in Bruce Edwards' 'Curry House Cookery' posted by Pete he says medium sized spanish onions are the only ones that will do.

Now I've tried several types of onion and have never been able to tell any significant difference to the base sauce. But if the skins were left on while boiling, well that's another matter all together. I also wonder if they even bother to peel them after boiling, perhaps they just blend them as is.

There is a very good case for doing this:

1. It costs nothing to do.
2. It makes peeling easier and therefore quicker, or if not peeled and just blended in with the sauce even quicker.
3. There is historical use of the method and it has a noted effect on colour and flavour.

I have enough base sauce to last for a century at the moment, but if anyone is making a new batch, perhaps they might try leaving the skins on and post the results.

I would suggest a long simmer if doing this as it will take quite a bit of time to break down the cellular structure of the skins, which will vary with the type of onion used. Certainly this would provide a sensible reason to simmer for many hours as proposed by several contributors here. It would also make sense of using a particular type of onion as there is likely to be more variation in flavouring from the skin than from the flesh of the onion.

More generally, I think the way to approach finding out what the missing ingredients are is to ask yourself, when considering whether to try something new, "would the chef really want me to know about this?". What I mean by that is would it put you off curry for whatever reason if you were told what the ingredient is.

Chicken stock would very definitely fall into this category for vegetarians, and some people would balk at using onion skins so this seems a likely candidate too.

Hi adamski

QuoteOr bribe one of the waiters or a lower paid member of the kitchen, everyone has a price!

Don't think I haven't thought about that one before.

But here's the strange thing. There are about 70,000 people employed in Britains' curry houses, almost all of Bangladeshi origin and most on minimum wage and even sub minimum wage. Is it possible that of these 70,000 people not one hasn't seen this site or ones like it and not seen a money making opportunity? And yet not a sniff of help or interest seems to be forthcoming from them.

I don't know what to conclude from that, but one way or another it seems a bit weird!

Hi ghanna

Quotedon't peel onion,garlic or ginger just but them in boiling water the night before,
next morning they are going to be very easy to peel ,peel onions and garlic but not the ginger

Now that's very interesting and here's why. During the second world war when all food was in short supply, all sorts of tricks were used to improve the daily diet. One of these tricks was to boil the onions unpeeled because it gives the dish a browner colour and adds to the flavour. It was used in place of gravy browning. So it makes me think, is it worth a try in the base sauce? It may not be the secret on its own, but it might be one step closer.

Of course it has the ring of truth to it as well, because most restaurants will take any short cut that saves time or money or both.

You mention tomato puree and tomato paste. What's the difference?

Thanks Blondie.

What I meant was, did the article you read suggest a particular brand, even if it is no longer available?