Happy New Year curry-lovers

So after a long and lively thread are there any specific questions that still remain unanswered?

I'm personally not a know-it-all (I wish I was) but I am good friends with a man who is. I asked specifically about the aluminium pans and as I posted previously, they are cheap and heat up quickly. I also meant to mention they are light so their chefs don't get any repetitive strain injuries. Apparently I should also have said that they are a viable cooking material. I assumed this last one went without saying but apparently not.

Regarding the science vs tips arguments - I'm on Razors side. Cooking at all but the highest level is about tips and technique. If you give a student who just left home and never cooked before, a housewife, a restaurant chef and a michellin starred chef all 3 eggs, a lump of cheese and some ham with a selection of cupboard condiments they would make very very different omlettes. The science is the same - heat + whisked egg = omlette. The difference is in the small details.

Curry cooking is exactly the same. The science is quite basic, making the science work for you is another matter. That's where the tips come in. Most of the tips and techniques will work for every dish so are well worth learning.

As much as I've enjoyed reading this argument unfold the answer is simple and a bit boring.

The real reason BIR's use aluminium pans is because they are cheap and they heat up really fast. The thinner the metal on the base the better, they don't want to hang around for even a minute waiting for a thicker pan to heat up!

As I've said so many times there is no secret anything, you just need to learn the techniques and that takes time. Once you crack it, you will be able to hit that BIR flavour with every dish you cook.

IG is the best bhaji thread to learn how to cook bhajis properly. Once you have mastered the technique you can add is whatever you like to make them unique to your taste. I spent 2 years trying to master them, then in 1 thread - mystery solved.

Whatever happened to Axe? That guy was a top person to have on the forum and gave a lot more answers than he asked questions.

I agree with what a lot of posters here have said. This guy didn't learn his trade on the back streets of Mumbai, he learnt them from cookbooks and forums - I'm almost certain he will have registered on CR0 at some stage. His recipes and techniques are very similar to what we were discussing here a couple of years ago. Maybe that's coincidence but there is a reason he talks about BIR style, mix powder, base gravy e.t.c. You could ask 100 proper Indian chefs what BIR means and I doubt any could answer correctly.

The videos are a good quality and there is some good narration. The Madras recipe looks okay and the base gravy is fairly standard fare. Personally I think he used too much g/g paste in the Madras and he didn't cook it out enough. I only use garlic paste in my Madras's and about half the amount he used. I cook it until it starts to brown then in go the spices and tomato dilute (much runnier than his) and cook that out too.

Finally, if you are running a curry establishment you gotta have a tandoor. Most of his food will never get above average without one.

This isn't forgotten by the way. The renovations are just taking longer than he was hoping. Maybe we could get a date in the diary for Sunday 4th or 11th December. How would that suit people?

Hi, thanks for sharing the recipe. It looks almost exactly like how I cook my Bombay Aloo (apart from adding potato instead of mushrooms ofc).

I never order these so even if I made it I couldn't tell you if it was authentic tasting but the ingredients and method all look good.

My only two thoughts you could try would be swap the oil for Vegetable Ghee. I use this for all my Indian dishes now and it really helps. Also, when you add the spices and chilli powder, add the tomato dilute straight away so it forms a paste with the powders (as you do in step 6). You can then cook/fry this paste for 30 secs with no danger of burning the spices. Frying the spices on their own is always a danger. Even 30 secs in a hot pan and they would be toast.

Assuming this lady is now 60 tops is she still alive? Surely the easiest thing to do would be to speak to her and beg for the recipe. If she is Indian then the recipe could have been 1 of thousands of local or regional traditional Indian recipes. If she is English then there is a chance it came from a book / tv show.

Hi mate,

Still very much on the cards. He has now taken over the Blue Tiger and is working on the renovations, this is likely to take another couple of weeks. I'll keep you posted.

Chris

The green pepper and onion chunks are gently pre-fried in g/g paste and vegetable ghee around here. Different chefs might throw in different things to make their mark on a dish. They may have just added in some smoked paprika which would combine with the sweetness of the onions to give you the taste you discovered.

Hope this helps.