Quote from: PaulP on December 17, 2011, 09:08 PM
Your link was the last batch that ifindforu sold. To buy a 10kg tub of this curry powder is about 25 to 30 quid excluding postage.

Aha! I didn't realise that was ifindforu's ebay ID. Seems a good way of dispensing with excess curry powder, given you can only buy the stuff in 10kg cans.

Some enterprising individual was knocking out Eastern Star Curry Powder on ebay in 8oz quantities for ?4.50 including postage. No idea how that compares with the 10Kg tin! -

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/EASTERN-STAR-CURRY-POWDER-USED-RESTAURANTS-CHINESE-INDIAN-/120826209497?pt=UK_Home_Garden_Food_SM&hash=item1c21cda4d9#ht_500wt_1413

Quote from: Razor on December 17, 2011, 01:04 PM
I would say that, 90% of the time I do get TA quality dishes but, everything has to be done 'spot on' for me to achieve the desired results. Timing is crucial, and knowing how far to go is too.  Singing spices and burning them, is a very fine line.  I take the, hot, quench, hot, quench approach for example; in goes the gg paste in hot oil, then quench with tom puree. Get the oil back to temp then in goes the spices.  Again, I then quench with a chefspoon of base and bring back to temp.  In goes the veg (if using) then quench again with more base and so on and so forth.

Ray

I agree with you here 100%, that's the technique I use too and I'm more than happy with the quality of dishes I'm currently producing. Are they as good as my local takeaway? Who knows, I don't really care to be honest, all I know is they're good enough for me and I enjoy eating them and that's what it's about for me. If I was objective, I'd say they were good enough to make my local takeaway redundant - I simply don't use Indian Restaurant takeaways any more, I'd much rather cook my own. What I do know is - they're far better than anything I could buy in the supermarket.

What I am convinced about is, there are no 'secret ingredients', as far as I'm concerned - it's all about technique, understanding what you're doing and cooking ability. The more you understand about what you're doing and the better the cook you are - the better the results you'll achieve with the same ingredients.

As you rightly point out - just one of the cooking processes - the frying of spices in hot oil is absolutely critical to the success of the dish, if you get this stage wrong it can completely ruin and change the overall flavour of the dish. But the reverse is also true, by getting this stage bang on the button and stopping the cooking process at exactly the right time by the addition of other ingredients and then continue cooking the next stage again for the correct period of time will ensure the dish is cooked correctly. Even the oil temperature at the point of adding the spices is critical - too hot and they'll burn before you have a chance to do anything, too cool and the spices won't cook properly and release their full flavour and aromatic oils.

The BIR/takeaway chefs bang these dishes out in no more than about 10-15 mins each, that means the use of a medium/high flame which makes, as you also rightly point out, the timing of adding the ingredients also critical. Get the timing wrong and things can go to hell in a hand basket faster than you can shout an expletive! That also means you have to have your 'mise en place' as used in the trade spot on and in the right place. That essentially means you have to have all your ingredients/spice mixes/meat or anything else going into that dish all ready to go in. I also bring my base sauce to a boil then a simmer before I start cooking the dish, so when I add it, it doesn't lower the temperature of the other ingredients when its added.

I would strongly urge all those people who don't feel they're getting the results they're hoping for, to have a critical look at their cooking techniques at all stages and be 100% sure the ingredients are being cooked correctly, before they look at the ingredients themselves as the possible cause of problems.

Just my opinion of course!

Cheers and good Karma!

Heya Phil

I would think most green leaf vegetables would work quite well in place of spinach if cooked and treated in a similar way - blanched/boiled till tender, drained/moisture squeezed out and chopped/shredded and 'bunged in'! I've always had a hankering for mustard greens cooked in place of spinach but I've never really found a convenient source for them although I haven't really looked that hard. I may even try growing some myself just to try.

Regarding side dishes, do try 'Aloo Methi' (potatoes with fresh fenugreek)* if you ever come across it on a restaurant menu or if you know the restaurant/waiters reasonably well ask them to make one for you, most will happily oblige. I've only ever had one waiter look at me in an odd way when I've asked them to make me one and that restaurant wasn't up to much anyway!

It's quite delicious and became my favourite side dish after trying it, I now usually split one of those and a Saag bhaji with my partner if and when we eat out.

But to answer your question, I've never tried anything in place of spinach, which I usually cook from fresh leaves rather than tinned.

*The fact that most restaurants will make that for you with fresh fenugreek leaves on hand makes you wonder what else they use fresh fenugreek for huh?

Good Karma!

Hey 976

Thanks for answering my questions so promptly! That makes it much clearer for me now. Just to follow up on a couple -

1/ I think this is just my interpretation of what crushed garlic is. For me, I just bash a clove with the flat of a knife blade and throw it in like that - in some dishes it stays in, in some it gets taken out. But for this one I think I'll finely chop it, so it integrates into the sauce. Thanks for clarifying.

2/ Aha! I've been doing something similar to this but not marinating, simply simmering in a garlic/onion/ginger/ puree with added water, oil, turmeric and salt. I'll try your way for this dish. Do you treat lamb in the same way? As I was going to use my method for lamb, just cook it for longer.

3/ I have an Aldi near me I'll acquire some of this - thanks.

Regarding the Star Anise, I think this is an area I may experiment with on this dish, but for the first one I'll cook it exactly as your instructions. It might be interesting to see what say half a tsp of fennel seeds might do fried briefly in hot oil before the onions go in does for it and omit the Star Anise. I'm curious about that.

You have answered my questions thank you and I'm itching to have a crack at this dish as your ingredients and technique look really good. I'll report back with my findings!

Cheers and good Karma!

Hey 976

That Bhuna looks superb! Like you I'm a big fan of bhuna's and swopped from Madras to Bhuna as my 'tester dish' of any new indian restaurant I tried as a yardstick of how good they were. It's not easy to judge the quality of different restaurants if you choose a different dish in each one you visit!

I have a few question about making your bhuna if I may.

1/ You mention in the initial recipe 5 cloves of garlic, crushed, yet later on you mentioned you finely chop them. Can you just clarify whether you finely chop them or simply add them crushed?

2/ How are you pre-cooking your meat? Is there a technique or recipe you use for this? Do you have an approximate quantity of meat you're using here, or merely judge it for one person? I usually reckon on around 200-250g of meat for one person/one dish.

3/ You mention 'hot curry oil' in the recipe and 'spiced oil' in the base, am I right in assuming these are two different things or are they one and the same?

4/ You mention in the ingredients one tomato chopped, yet in the dish itself the tomato looks quartered. Am I right in assuming the tomato is simply quartered and not finely chopped to be integrated into the sauce?

5/ The green chilli's, am I right in assuming these are standard thin green finger chilli's finely ringed or chopped and not added whole?

6/ I've always assumed a ladle would contain about 200ml, yet you add three of these but only specify 300ml in the ingredients. Is right to assume then, that each ladle you're adding is about 100ml?

I like technique you're using of reducing and concentrating the base/sauce almost three times. This seems to me to be a recurring theme I've come across for creating that 'depth of flavour' found in BIR type curries. The other two appear to be pre-cooked meat and 'spiced oil'.

I'm also fascinated by your inclusion and use of 'Star Anise'. I've always assumed that star anise would impart far too powerful a flavour in most indian dishes (I know it's used in small quantity in some and in spice mixtures) and I've rarely ever come across it in any recipes I've ever cooked. Although I do add it as my 'secret ingredient' in my beef ragu for bolognese sauce used in my lasagne and spaghetti! Even then you have to be careful how much you use, I often only use a half of one.

However, taking it out when start adding the other ingredients would certainly pull back that flavour it imparts. Have you tried using anise or fennel seeds either whole or ground in the spice mixtures or added on their own to impart a similar flavour?

This dish is the next one I'm trying after I've finished my Bruce Edwards base experimentation, thanks for posting it!

Cheers and good Karma!

976

That's really interesting.

Cilantro as I understand it is what Americans call what we call Coriander, you can always rely on Americans to come up with their own word for something that everyone else knows as something else!

I've always been fascinated by the 'Ayurvedic' benefits of Indian food and spices and many of the spices used in Indian cookery are there specifically for the health or digestive properties they possess. Turmeric for example, one of the main components used in Indian cookery doesn't really impart a huge amount of flavour to the dish (at least not when compared to say Coriander, Cumin, Fenugreek etc) but is used for its primarily for colouring, curcuminoid content and digestive properties.

Likewise asafoetida which is used primarily for its digestive and anti-flatulence properties which is why it's often used in conjunction with not easily digested ingredients such as beans or lentils. Fresh chillis also have very high quantities of Vitamin C in them etc etc.

It's a fascinating subject and as long as indian food is cooked with moderate amounts of fats or oils and combined with vegetable and pulse dishes it's actually a very healthy and nutritious cuisine.

Cheers and good Karma!

Quote from: PaulP on November 17, 2011, 06:14 PMThen why not try one of the popular base sauce recipes from this site and see what you think.

Paul

I think I've done enough experimentation on Khris Dillons recipe now to understand the flavour profile its giving and I've now moved on and made some Bruce Edwards base and cooked out his 'Chicken Curry' according to his instructions and I must say I was quite pleasantly surprised. It's definitely a step further forwards in the right direction. It was interesting to note the difference in the 'lighter spicing' of Khris Dillons to the 'heavier spicing' of Bruce Edwards.

It was also interesting to note how Khris Dillon precooks her chicken in some of the 'garlic/ginger/onion' puree and turmeric whereas Bruce Edwards doesn't, although he does suggest that if you want to reduce the spicing in his dish you could do so by pre-cooking the chicken with whole spices. I do have one more portion of Khris Dillons base sauce so I may well try it with the Bruce Edwards 'Spice Mix' and see what the differences are.

Curiously both Khris Dillons' Madras and Bruce Edwards' Madras both looked 'identical'! so I still don't understand the comment and view that 'it doesn't look right'. What does it matter what it looks like, its what it tastes like thats important surely?

I still have plenty of Bruce Edwards base left so I'm going to do some experimentation with his recipe. One weakness I feel is his frying of spices in hot oil - that has a very small margin of error attached to it as its as easy to undercook the spices as it is to burn or overcook them - not that I did either by the way! So I'm going to experiment a little with making a paste out of the spices and tomato puree (and spices plus tomato puree and small amount of garlic/ginger puree) and see what difference that makes.

I also like the way Bruce Edwards adds his base in two stages. He wasn't really clear on exactly how much base you add at each stage but from his instructions you added half a ladle first then I worked out you add about a second ladle which I approximated to be about 100ml/200ml which I just judged by eye. I like the way he uses a reduction method on the first batch until the oil separates and then the second batch until the oil separated which I found added a nice depth of flavour over the Khris Dillon version.

I'll report my findings in the Bruce Edwards thread.

Cheers and good Karma!

Ray

I'm more than happy to apologise if you feel I've slighted you, that certainly wasn't my intention at all.

If you feel with a clear conscience that you've cooked Khris's recipe precisely as per her instructions for every stage, including the base sauce, the pre-cooking of the meat in the sauce and ingredients she specifies and the actual dish itself using the exact ingredients she specifies I'm more than happy to accept that.

All I can then say is - my experiences and results of her recipe and dish appear to be quite different to yours and this can quite often be the case when you get two different people cooking the same recipe with different abilities, cooking skills, experience, taste buds and expectations of the final result.

I've often found the need to cook out recipes/dishes half a dozen times or more before I've fully understood them and what impact the ingredients and cooking techniques may be having on the flavour of the dish and know from the consistency or otherwise of the results that I've cooked the dish correctly or incorrectly.

If you can cook out a dish and know instinctively there's something not right with it and can improve it by substituting other ingredients - you're a far better cook than I am and I take my hat off to you because I've been cooking many varieties of cuisines including Indian for over 30+ years.

That's not to say that I know everything there is to know about Indian cooking, far from it, and that's one of the reasons why I'm here - to learn new and different techniques. Indian cookery within itself can be quite tricky to learn and understand due to the sheer volume of differing herbs, spices and ingredients as well as a wide array of cooking techniques each one of which can impart a slightly different flavour on the final dish depending on how its cooked and used.

My ultimate goal of being here is to gain a greater understanding on the BIR way of cooking as opposed to the more traditional way of Indian cooking which I'm much more familiar with - because that's what I've primarily concentrated on. That means I'll be asking a lot of questions as to why people do things - it's not to challenge why they do them, it's to understand why they do them. Who knows, maybe a few people will even gain benefit from my more traditional understanding of Indian cookery techniques.

So please don't take offence at my comments - it's my way of learning and understanding!

Cheers and good Karma!

Quote from: PaulP on November 16, 2011, 09:19 PMThe KD garam masala is really a hybrid between a spice mix (too much cumin/corriander for a trad gm) and a gm mix.

Paul

I'd certainly agree that it's a 'hybrid' between a traditional Garam Masala and a more conventional 'Spice Mix', I just wanted to clear up the point I was trying to make with regards to HOW it was used, rather than necessarily what it was CALLED.

The other point I wanted to make is that these things are not necessarily interchangeable between dishes and recipes from one cook to another - that's one of the reasons there is so many different Garam Masala mixes out there. Many of them are tailored specifically for the recipes/dishes that cook is instructing you to make. That doesn't mean you can just pull one off the shelf and use that instead.

I think a discussion on Garam Masala and what it contains and how it's used could go on ad infinitum, because as you rightly pointed out there are no hard and fast rules, merely guidelines.

For example, if I wanted to make up my own 'secret-ingredient' 'all purpose-catch all' spice mix that just happened to contain some Cardamons, Cloves, Black Peppercorns and Cinnamon, plus a variety of others spices - would I HAVE to call it a Garam Masala and HAVE to add it at the end of cooking, because conventional wisdom dictates that's what I have to do because it contains those four ingredients? I'm sure you'd agree the answer would be no.

With regards to the results I achieved - they were interesting.

I first cooked it out following Kris's instructions to the letter and for me it was over-poweringly salty. The second time through I cooked it out precisely as described but added the Garam Masala component only at the end of cooking and reduced the salt to half and it tasted just as Ray mentioned - 'too pharmaceutical' and the Garam Masala overpowered the dish.

The third time I cooked it using all the same ingredients (half the salt, but double the chilli powder) but changed the sequence in which they were cooked, I fried a little of the sauce in oil then bhoona'd all the spices in that, then added the chicken for a few minutes then finally the sauce, and that took me closer to what I expected at the beginning.The fourth time I added some chopped onion, bhoona'd all the spices in that (as third time) added some tomato puree, then the chicken then the sauce and cooked it till the oil separated and that was probably the best of the lot. It was tasty enough and a close approximation to what you might expect to get in a BIR, but still a fair bit off.

It was a good starting point, but I want to try out some more of the recipes given on the site to see how much closer I can get. I'm particularly interested in trying out some of the base sauces, as for me that's where Khris's recipe wasn't quite right.

Cheers and good Karma!