Quote from: Cory Ander on November 06, 2009, 02:13 AM

Quote from: JerryM on November 05, 2009, 06:31 PM
i've never tried brown sauce and i can't for the life of me see me trying it in the hunt towards BIR. Lea & Perrins Worcester sauce does work though

They are similar in that they both have molasses in them.  Though, personally, I have never seen either used in a BIR curry (though there are several reports here that Worcester sauce is sometimes used).

Yep!  I saw a few 'shakes' of Worchester sauce being added to a madras once.  I asked to watch the chef of the 'Gatwick Tandoori' (now the Zari; it's gone up-market!) make my curry.  This was about 15 years ago!

Quote from: JerryM on October 28, 2009, 08:59 AM
i used it in base for a while. it does add a extra taste. i don't feel it made any difference to the final curry though and stopped using it a good while ago.

Ditto

Quote from: PaulP on October 24, 2009, 08:56 PM
I have a persistant memory of a place when I was a student in Leeds around 1982.
The bhuna there was to die for - thick tasty sauce and loads of it.

I too was a student in Leeds, 1982-85; I have never found anywhere since , the flavour of the grub in the 'Islamabad', opposite the leeds University Parkinson Building.  I've been chasing it ever since, as has Secret Santa I think.  There were a couple of other good 'cheepies' just up the road: Chakwells and Nafees, as I recall!

I agree with Corry; I used base a couple of times after 6 days: lets just say things were a bit 'soft' in the bathroom the day after!!  I don't think you'll poison yourself, but it may be past its best after that long.

Base actually improves with keeping up to day 3, IMO.

THAT BIR must be worth a pilrimage; where was it?

I have to say, Corry, that if you don't know, nobody does! 

Much experimentation here!  Freeze it in small bunches, whole, and JUST before you need it - chop up the (finer) stalks and add it str8 to the pot, immediately b4 serving.

Not quite as good as fresh, but IMHO the best way; having tried all sorts of methods!

Not trying to be a party pooper here, but oil that that has been reheated many times times changes chemically and can become EXTREMELY unhealthy.

We all know that saturated fat is (generally) unhealthy; trans-fats (i.e. hydrogenated vegtable oils), VERY unhealthy; poly-unsaturated oils (eg sunflower), are to some extent "a-healthy" (neither good nor bad); and mono-unsaturated oils (eg olive) relatively healthy.

However, the normally 'neutral' polyunsaturates such as sunflower oil become very bad for you after only being heated to smoking-point ONCE, let alone on countless occasions!

The 'healthy-ness' ranking of the various oils and fats changes markedly when considering whether or not they have been heated!

I have read that olive oil does not become particularly unhealthy after heating, so I may be tempted to try Jerry's suggestion of using it in curry; I've only been put-off in the past by reports that it does not taste good in curry - although I use it all the time in 'Med' type food such as spag bol etc.  Jerry's report that it is OK gives a new light on this.

At present I use groundnut oil for curry: it's 'cold healthyness' ranking puts it slightly below olive, but healthier than most; and according to the scientific literature, heating does not have quite the negative impact on it that it does on sunflower oil, for example.

Now I enjoy deep fried BIR stuff as much as everyone else on here, and I'm sure many are aware of what I've said above; but it is worthwhile knowing about this.....

All this talk of adding garlic powder and ginger powder, dopes sound a little like doubling back toward Pat Chapman :

What the heck, I'll go and give that a try too

Quote from: JerryM on October 01, 2009, 08:07 AM
No. it's very different to msg.


ingredients listed: salt, mustard flour, paprika, black pepper, flavour enhancer, sugar, onion powder, garlic, herb, spice extract, celery

the closest i can describe is as a veg stock granule.

That's on of the reasons I put a stick of celery in my base Jerry!  It's a componant of most vegtable stocks; what's base but a thick vegtable stock?