Nice post ghanna, it summarises nicely the majority of variations found in the base sauce debate, and like you I too have tried them all.

Quotei try ed every recipe ,every technique but i am not getting far.
could you please tell me why ?

Yes I can. There is an ingredient or perhaps less likely a cooking technique used in the base sauce of real curry houses that we are not using. It has to be in the base sauce as that is the only thing our 'observers' have not seen made from start to finish.

But you knew that already didn't you!

Hi Blondie

I have noticed a chicken stock flavour in some of the curries I have had but it doesn't have to come from the use of chicken stock.

When I first started into making restaurant style curries I used Kris Dhillon's book (didn't everyone?) and I followed the recipes to the letter. One of the curries, and only one, had this exact same chicken stock flavour, but if you read her book there is no actual chicken stock used in any of the curries. Unfortunately I can't remember which one it was, other than it wasn't one with cream or yoghurt in it, but it may well have been the dahl now that you mention it.

So the lesson is that that chicken stock flavour, which I really like BTW, doesn't necessarily imply the use of real chicken stock or cubes!

Damn. I wish you hadn't mentioned this, I'm now going to have to 'do the Dhillon' again!

Also that particular stock that you mention; do you have a brand name?

I don't know if chicken stock is used but if I were a savvy curry house owner I would waste nothing. On this basis the 'stock' that the pre-cooked chicken is made in would go straight into the base sauce pot, so there may be some mileage in the chicken stock idea.

I feel sorry for the unwitting veggies if this is so however, tucking in to their veg massala curry not really knowing why it tastes so good.? ?
But that may very well be why the chefs are so reticent to fully demonstrate or even explain their base sauce in full.

Hey Adamski, now who's mad? Don't do too much thinking, this curry secret thing can become an obsession! ?

Seriously though I had had thoughts along the same lines as you. When the Bangladeshis first started opening curry houses in the late 40's early 50's, it is quite likely they would have found some spices difficult to source, at least initially, so they may have experimented with substitutes. I think this is where the secret ingredient first reared its ugly head. But it must also make it an everyday available item, so it's nothing exotic, it's just unknown.

I think the methi or dried fenugreek leaf issue is closed. They definitely add a certain curry smell to the dish and people have seen chefs use them so we can conclude that they are a necessary ingredient, but I don't think they are the secret ingredient.

Also I think that while the use of spiced oil adds to the dish, it still doesn't make the curry takeaway-like, it just gets it closer to the real thing.

That unique restaurant curry smell will be the defining point in the search for this ingredient or ingredients. When our curries are indistinguishable from restaurant curries by smell alone then I think the quest will have ended.

Pete, you yourself have seen several curries prepared by different curry house cooks. You've seen the ingredients and you've seen the techniques. The one thing you have not seen and nor I think has anyone else here, correct me if I'm wrong, is the making of their base sauce from raw ingredients to final product.

I honestly don't think a poll is even necessary, the evidence seems to weigh heavily on there being a secret ingredient and it can only be hidden in the base sauce.

As Sherlock Holmes said "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth!"? ?

Two questions to the brick lane demo attendees:

Did you actually get to taste compare the base sauce that was in the big pot that they had made and would be used for their own restaurant curries against that which you made yourself?

If I read the posts correctly, no one seems to have done this and it is the most obvious thing to do to get an answer to the secret ingredient question.

Did the recipes you made while at the demo genuinely have the unmistakable missing flavour/aroma/depth that you would recognise in any takeaway bought curry?

I'm firmly of the opinion that their and every other curry house's base sauce contains something which they are not including in their demo, and the "it will get better the longer you cook it" explanation is their way of avoiding the issue. If longer cooking were the answer then Pete, bless him, would have the most flavoursome restaurant like curries in the universe.

And this brings me to conclude, assuming that the above is correct, that the brick lane demos are a waste of money unless you are a complete novice to the art. You are basically getting fleeced as they are not actually demonstrating the real deal.

Those of you that have posted your experiences have done a great job and I don't mean any offence by the foregoing, but until someone stumbles on the ingredient(s) they are leaving out of their base sauce then this is just a circular argument which will just run and run.

The real test would be to cook the same dish at the demo, once with their base sauce and then with the fresh made demo base sauce! I predict one would taste like takeaway curry and the other, well...

These are two recipes I would like too.

What I can tell you is that the method of making the biriani is to fry off some pre cooked pilau rice in some of the base sauce, adding pre-cooked meat and veg as you go, but I don't know what extra in terms of spices is added. However this should make a starting point for experimentation.

I once made a bhuna that tasted exactly like my takeaway one; very rich flavour and nice and thick. However when I made it I was in a big rush so everything went in with the gas on full heat. I basically added the usual garlic and ginger together with some finely chopped onion, fried this off for a couple of mins, then added pinches of several (about 9) spices i had to hand, and some tomato puree and water. But because I was in a rush I couldn't remember later what I had used, and I haven't managed to reproduce it since. I was really fed up because this really was the closest match to any restaurant recipe I had ever made.

So not much help to you, but the the reason I mention it is because just by being in a rush I accidently stumbled on the way the restaurants cook, i.e. full heat and quick, and secondly there wasn't a whiff of base sauce or spiced oil used. Infact I used very little oil, there was no skimming it off at the end.

The one conclusion I took from this is that the bhuna spicing must be much more involved than a madras for example.

Phil, was that unknown spice you thought he called 'gultri' actually black or brown cardamom? They are called elachi in gujerati so could sound the same. I have seen base sauces and pilau recipes where they have been included. They are not 2p size but if flattened would be a bit bigger than a 1p. You can see them here:

http://www-ang.kfunigraz.ac.at/~katzer/engl/generic_frame.html?Amom_sub.html


Also, did you get the brand of pilau rice they used?

Phil thanks for the post it is very interesting. The 'metti' is kasoori methi (dried fenugreek leaf).
I have loads of questions:

That seems like a lot of oil for the pilau. How much rice was used?

Did you get the brand of the 'family size' tomato paste?

What was the brand of curry powder used?

Can you elaborate on what you mean by dried spinach?

Was vegetable or butter ghee used?

Hope you can answer some of these?