Quote from: Admin on October 17, 2010, 09:14 AM
Thanks peeps, we are at ?21 total so far.
I'll leave it open if we get ?100 i'll upgrade.

Stew, can you clarify, please : are there recurrent cost implications if we upgrade, and if so, what is their approximate magnitude and how would you plan to cover them ?  And what are the recurrent costs for the present site, and how are they covered ?  I would assume that, at the very least, you have to renew the domain name at about ?9-00/year, plus the cost of a basic hosting package.

** Phil.

Very strongly agree : bringing together fragmented information from a single reliable source would be very worthwhile.  I would be happy to integrate things if more experienced members could indicate whether the various fragments are to be found.

** Phil.

Quote from: Razor on October 17, 2010, 11:58 AMMine measures 39cm

Mine used to, but it shrunk with use 

More seriously, do you make much use of it ? I ask because it seems to me that for measuring spices (etc), one needs a spoon that is appropriate to the vessels in which one keeps the spices, and whilst a professional Indian restaurant range has great stainless steel bins for spices, most of we amateurs will be storing our spices in jars with a maximum aperture of (say) 2 3/4" (7cm).  I find that a desert spoon is about the largest utensil I can get in one of those and still be able to accurately assess the level before withdrawing it.

There is a description and an illustration of a chef's spoon on page 58 of Undercover Curry; the author (Dave Loyden) describes measures using it as a "scant dip", a "standard dip" (3/4 teaspoon) , a level curry spoon (4 teaspoons) and a curry spoon scoop (10 teaspoons).  He doesn't gloss the scant dip, as far as I can see, and gives the overall length as about 30cm.

** Phil.

Well, I've now finished a first pass through Dave Loyden's Undercover Curry, and my impressions remain favourable.  He points out in several places where restaurants take short cuts in order to be able to operate within an acceptable time frame and to budget, and these make perfect sense.  And although he doesn't adduce these particular arguments in discussing pillau rice, he does say that the rice should not be washed before frying, thereby contradicting much of the received wisdom on this topic, and of course this makes perfect sense in terms of restaurant economics where the time needed to adequately wash sufficient rice for one day's covers would be out of all proportion to the income that the finished dish would generate.

I've only had the book since 10:00 this morning, and I'm eating out tonight (English, for a change !) but my pre-cooked chicken is waiting in the 'fridge, as is the spiced oil, so with any luck I will be able to report on the success or otherwise of one of his recipes within the next 36 hours.

Afterthought : he does, unfortunately, repeat the chicken-based recipes for beef & lamb (fortunately combined), and although there is a tiny bit of variation, this is little more than a copy-and-paste exercise which bumps up the page count whilst adding very little in the way of information.  But sadly, that's true of most books on curries 

** Phil.

Sorry, wrong thread.  Moved.

I guess there's "red" and "red".  To my eye, everything from Madras to Phal is red (including Vindaloo as the intermediate strength), but none of these is "red" as in "tandoori red" which is a different shade (carmine ?).  I suppose the end of the Madras -- Phal continuum would be the colour of pure Kashmiri chilli.

Thank you, Paul : that is useful interesting.  Do we also know whether they blend their own CP in bulk, or buy it ready-made, and also have any offered any rationale for why they include pre-blended spices as well as the  same thing unblended ?

** Phil.

No, but nor did I try to suggest that I was.  If I have occasion to ask such questions, I will of course report back on how these were received; all I was trying to convey was that my initial impressions were favourable, and since making a start on the book while waiting for the rain to stop (seeing blue skies I had changed into cycling garb, only for the heavens to open) I remain positive : I like his "to hell with exact measurement" approach, and my only concern so far (I am up to onion bhajis) is that his recipe includes curry powder.  Now I know that some (many ?) recipes on CR0 also include curry powder, but for me this remains a suspect ingredient : almost by definition it cannot contain anything that could not be added as an individual spice, so what is the purpose of adding some spices by themselves (say, coriander, turmeric, cumin and fenugreek, all of which are widely accepted as the staple ingredients of most curry powders) and then adding the same spices already blended into curry powder ?  Do we have really good evidence that BIRs actually use curry powder in their recipes, or is this just an urban myth ?

Well, I confess I did try it after he told me about it !  But I have to say, I do enjoy a good post-curry fart : the spices and onion add a certain je ne sais quois that elevates them to a whole new level compared to (say) those resulting from baked beans ...