Quote from: George on March 04, 2011, 10:35 AM

Quote from: prawnsalad on March 04, 2011, 02:30 AM
Sorry if I missed something here as although I think DS is great I just cant remember her running a BIR? As we aren't taking Steak and Kidney Pie I don't know why anyone bothered to reply to George. My guess is she would screw up the Taz base first go, just like the rest of us.

Yes, it certainly looks like you've missed the whole point. It's perfectly valid to come up with a general observation and then suggest it MIGHT apply to the specific case of BIR recipes. In my experience, most (i.e more than half of) books claiming to reveal BIR recipes are a bit of a disappointment, to say the least, and I thought many people here tend to agree. It might be amusing to mention Big Macs and Steak & Kidney pudding but it's totally irrelevant to the main point I'm making.

I may have come across a little harsh here unintentionally. However there is no validity in your original post as DS does not specialise in Indian food any more than Jamie Oliver does.
The position I now occupy is one of zero time for any chef (celebrity or otherwise) who has not actually worked in a public BIR personally, as no matter how good they are at streak & kidney (pie not pudding) they lack any real proof of ever making a true BIR dish even once.

Sorry if I missed something here as although I think DS is great I just cant remember her running a BIR?

As we aren't taking Steak and Kidney Pie I don't know why anyone bothered to reply to George.

My guess is she would screw up the Taz base first go, just like the rest of us.

One of the many possibilities for failing to achieve true BIR flavour I?ve not seen mentioned much in the forums is the quality of spices used.
Having eliminated a good few now (funny how I never feel satisfied to learn by other peoples mistakes in cooking.) I was wondering if it could be down to the fact that most of us appear to buy bog standard spices that have been sitting on the shelf for several months when a busy restaurant can order wholesale quantities possible imported from source in only a week or so hence bypassing the wholesale / retail time factor.
I know some members have grown their own spices and would like to know if there?s any mileage in this. It just seems to me that adding large quantities of something doesn?t equate to the punch you get from restaurant flavours.

Just a quick note to say I did this base and Prawn Madras tonight exactly as described by SnS and found it really useful as its good proof that several ingredients I was using are total red herrings.

I didn't get BIR from it but that just brings us back to the usual torments.

Thanks for this old yet very important thread SnS.

I recommend heavy drinking while you're cooking, then you won't care what she thinks.

Quote from: peterandjen on January 19, 2011, 12:06 PM
It wont work, heres a few obvious reasons...
                                                              Somebody finds a willing chef (who is the judge on the chef, will we all be happy with the choice?).

There have been takeaways featured in the forums that several posters have agreed to be good, a vote would settle it.

We pay the chef, the chef shows/tells, what if he doesn't come up with anything we havn't allready tried, you still have to pay the chef, what then another whip round for a second chef?

The whole point here is that the chef actually shows us what we've been doing wrong, if you eat his food and its BIR and then he holds your hand as you remake it from the ground up how can it be anything else?

The chef gives us a secret, you think well done weve cracked it. How many times have you read posts in here or anywhere where somebody has come up with an idea only to have it flamed from the word go without anybody else actually trying it, worse still, this post then becomes such a long drawn out flame war that nobody can then make any sense of the original idea and it gets lost.

If a respected member of the forum said they had reproduced an authentic curry from absolute scratch with direct instruction from a confirmed BIR chef wouldn't you try it?

Good idea though. I just don't think it'll get any further than this stage.

Thanks and over to the mods...

I would like to salute those here who have been successful in gaining access to their local takeaways kitchen, especially with a camera.

It seems that some restaurant owners don?t see any harm in letting the odd person in if they?re a regular and spend some money during the session, perhaps this is because they know how difficult it is to learn simply from observing the chef/s over such a short space of time even for those familiar with most of the ingredients.

What also appears to be true of the forums is that no one has managed to get a BIR employee completely on side, there are probably more reasons than we realise for this, some cultural, some financial but that would belong in a different thread.
What I think everyone would agree on is that with regular personal instruction at an established BIR where English was spoken to a relatively high standard they would soon be making exact copies of the dishes demonstrated to them.

Obviously theories such as to the one requiring a large volume of turnover to produce reclaimed oil would be an issue but without having these things actually explained from someone who is a professional there will always be endless speculation.

Therefore my suggestion is that the one of the moderators makes a formal approach to a rated and known openly receptive BIR with a respectable cash offer.
I would be more than happy to make a donation for this and membership here is sizable so surely people would contribute to something which would shorten the road to real curry by what could be decades of so-so attempts?
A series of videos involving running commentary could be the main focus followed by members Q & A directly to the chef.

My betting is that it?s only going to happen if we put our money where our moderator is.   

First off I am not here to criticize those who eat meat and any that do make an argument for or against on that topic are simply disrespecting this website and what it?s here for.  I was a vegetarian for six years but then included fish in my diet for the following 11 which brings me to today.

Point being is that tonight I had yet another takeaway prawn masala after making many personal attempts at masala/vindaloo/phall which is supposedly simpler than other BIR dishes. I have watched videos referenced from here, read almost all posts now and kept a wide open mind on why restaurant flavour is generally better and now I am sure I know.

When you stop eating meat a few things happen, firstly you fart more (yes really,) but aside the various other non-relevant differences you  1. Need considerably less salt and 2. Very much notice the difference between a meat and a non-meat product.
Hence I just had a moment of clarity regarding the base sauce and that is I have been stupidly naive by crediting this hard to master cocktail possible by using vegetables alone.

Any flavour this resonant has to be meat influenced and is most probably some kind of chicken stock as suspected in several posts. Meat eaters won?t see this anywhere near as easily and although many may argue the point you simply won?t understand unless you cease all meat consumption for about 3 months.)

Therefore I will now stop beating myself up over apparent failures as the answer was there all along, the hard-core members here always claim to be so close yet so far, the restaurants never want to give you the "curry gravy" and never show you the basic basics because although they aren't worried about you starting your own curry house they are very worried they will get fined over using meat additives in non-meat dishes.
I am sitting here smelling the after effects of my prawn masala and realising I just didn?t want to admit that its red meat/poultry based to myself because that of course means I won?t be ordering any more

I found this page before this site and so tried it early on. The onion paste adds a lot of time to the cooking process and its tricky to avoid over drying it in parts leaving hard bits in the final sauce and I found it made zero difference in taste.

Just spent 3 hours playing with some new ingredients from here:

http://www.theasiancookshop.co.uk/index.asp

Still way off true BIR, but I just felt like immortalising the result on cr0 with my naff camera.

Still such a long way to go but this was a new milestone acheived due to this site.


Thanks everyone...