Quote from: CurryCanuck on October 18, 2006, 03:09 AM
.....omit the food colouring - it adds naught !...

I couldn't disagree more, you must have heard the phrase "you eat with your eyes". I don't use any of the dodgy food colourings myelf, but tandoori chicken just isn't tandoori chicken if it's not red. And you try passing off a CTM that's anything other than flourescent red in a restaurant in the UK and see what reaction you'd get, it wouldn't be pleasant.

It's a long time since I had a takeaway curry and had any left over the next day. But I can say with 100% certainty that when I've had a good curry with the taste and smell in the past, it always tasted and smelled exactly the same the next day, with the smell particularly infused in the exces oil and coming off the curry even when cold.

Seriously though, if we all just used metric measures we wouldn't have to guess what the author of a recipe means by a mug for example and we wouldn't keep going over this same subject every couple of months.

Here's an even better idea. How about we drag ourselves kicking and screaming out of the past, ditch cups, floz etc, and standardise on that nice new metric system. You know, that system we have been using for about 35 years? Unless of course you still have some strange affiliation with the colonies, who for some unknown reason find it difficult to count in multiples of 10.

YF

Quote from: Chilli Prawn on October 12, 2006, 11:16 AM
...if you use a 7 litre pot instead of a 14 litre pot you don't just halve the quantities!

Doh, give me strength! Don't start this old chestnut again.

YF

Quote from: johnboy on September 27, 2006, 03:07 PM
Oops sorry  :-[

Don't be. The FAQ hardly jumps out at you. (nudge, nudge admin)

YF

Quote from: Mark J on September 27, 2006, 02:39 PM
Ive got 2 curry cupboards!

My spice requirements have now got so large that I've just gone out and bought an Indian grocer's shop. At least it's now all in one easy to find place.  :

Yes it's a funny thing. Years ago when I first started eating curries I always used to find whole spices in them, now I rarely if ever find any.

One thing I will say though is that I really don't think whole spices make any diffrence to the overall taste of a curry at all. I actually made two identical curries but in one I fried some cloves, cardamom and cinnamon stick first. The result, I couldn't detect any difference at all.
I think they have a place in authentic indian cooking where the cooking time is generally longer, but I reckon they are more for show in Indian restaurant meals.

YF

Hi madrasandy,

You probably used fresh oil when you did this. No matter what technique you use, if you use fresh oil and high heat you will always instantly burn the G&G and/or spices, the oil temperature will just be too great. You have to use the orangey coloured oil scooped from the curry base. The cooking with the curry base changes its nature and you won't then burn your ingredients.

YF

Quote from: johnboy on September 22, 2006, 10:11 PM
Is it true that the pan shouldn't be washed after cooking but just wiped clean?

Yes. This is actually more important than the initial seasoning. After each dish is cooked, rinse the pan in warm water and wipe clean with a paper towel. It is the residue of the food that is left after this that gets cooked up when you use the pan next time. Eventually it forms a 'natural' non stick layer. When the pan is new you shouldn't cook anything in it that will destroy this layer. So nothing acidic.

The actual seasoning is a one time only process if you get the 'after care' right.

YF