Quote from: Stephen Lindsay on June 27, 2011, 06:34 PM
how about a bog standard garlic press?

Doesn't really achieve the same result. I'm looking for chopped garlic not squashed garlic

Something I struggle with is chopping garlic - those little cloves are slippery beggars and the potential for chopping your fingers seems large.  I'm also a bit of a sucker for kitchen gadgets so my eyes lit up when I saw this one:

Garlic Chopper on Amazon

But... are they any good?  I'd be interested to hear if you've tried the above or if you have any other tips, tricks or recommended gadgets for chopping garlic.

Hi Phil & welcome!

Great video CT, this gives me some further ideas for my own efforts to develop a dhansak like the takeaway ones I've loved in the past.  Just as the video CBM has on his website I notice the colour of the cooked dish is somewhat redder than the dhansak's I'm familiar with which makes me wonder whether the tomato puree is not used by my local BIR chefs in this area (or is used in a smaller proportion).  I may try your recipe proportions without the tomato element to see how that turns out. 

Hi Axe, I saw your post but hadn't realised that any of the various sizes you were discussing were the "standard" large foil tray in which main courses are normally served.  Perhaps because you mentioned 5 different tray sizes I jumped to the conclusion that they were all non-standard sizes (by which I mean not the sizes I'm used to seeing from my local takeaway)

Now armed with this new knowledge and in the interests of science I've just poured 850ml of water into my 20" Meyer HT+ frying pan to see how full it would be.  Right up to the brim was the answer! 

Quote from: peterandjen on May 12, 2011, 01:47 PM
There are 2 sizes of foil container, i have just measured the smaller of the two and it holds 400ml of liquid.
One of these full of base is what i use at home to make 2 meals.
This small container is the one you would receive a single portion of ta rice in.
Hope this helps.

Thanks Peter, I understand what you mean by your description of a standard small takeaway foil tray.  I'm guessing the larger variety in which most main courses would be served is approx 50% larger capacity, so maybe 600ml volume?

Hi Jim and welcome.

Hi Anna and welcome. 

How do you manage to get such a tiny amount from the bottle onto the top of the rice?  A normal teaspoon would appear to be far too large for such a task.

Quote from: curryhell on May 14, 2011, 01:15 PM

Quote from: natterjak on May 14, 2011, 12:32 PM
Thanks CH.  So for Pilau you would add a tiny "pile" of colour in various places around the rice then drip water onto it?  How much powder is required?

That's about it Natterjak.  "Pile", maybe not quite that much ;D ;D.  What i normally do is add two "piles" of yellow, one "pile" of orange and a smaller "pile" of red in different areas once I've removed the whole spices when the rice has finished cooking, placing the minutest drip of water on it. And i do mean the minutest .  Too much liquid and the effect of the colouring is lost and you have serious overkill and a lot of varying degrees of the food colourings invading much of the rice .  I then leave the rice to stand with the lid on for another 10 - 15 mins to allow the colouring to invade the grains.  Then simply fork the coloured grains gently through the rest of the beautifully white basmati.  Job done and very impressive .  The best way i can quantify our chosen unit of measurement - the "pile", is to say that the "pile" equates to a roughly the size of one or maybe two match heads and NO MORE!!!  Is that of any help?  Next time i make some I'll post a pic in this thread as it may be useful to others.

Perfect description, thanks.  If Parcelforce ever deign to deliver my consignment from SpicesofIndia I'll give it a try.