Topic: A day with an Aussie Indian Restaurant Chef

[Masala Mark]

Hi folks,

Well this is my first post, and hopefully one of many!

After seeing jb's posts a month or so ago about having a chef around to his house I thought I would try the same thing here in Australia.

I found a free classifieds web site where people would place ads for jobs, there were numerous posts of Indian chefs looking for work in restaurants. I thought I would send them a post and ask them if they would be interested in some casual work until they found full time employment at a restaurant.

After a couple of meetings with diffent people and weeding out a few, particularly the one that said you don't need many onions, I had my first lesson on Saturday.

4 kg's of onions, green chilies, tomatoes, tomato purre, cashew nuts etc etc the list went on and on.

Apparently there's more then one way to cook a restaurant curry...

He went on to make 3 base gravies, two of the other chefs that I spoke to said exactly the same as well.

1. Tomato gravy - basically loads of tomato puree, a little onion, some spicing, cashews and almond meal
2. Korma/Nut gravy - lots of onions, some spicing, cashews and almond meal
3. Tomato & Onion gravy - lots of onions, little tomato and some spicing, similar to the base gravies

To make his dishes in the restaurant he will take a spoon of this one and a spoon of that one, for a different dish it might be two spoons of one gravy and one of the others, and then you add some powders etc just like the other recipes.

The dishes made were Butter Chicken, Chicken Tikka Masala, Veg Korma, Navrattan Korma, Beef Vindaloo, and Beef Madras.

The remains of the dishes were finished off tonight and my wife's comments were that she felt like she's eaten in a restaurant the last couple of nights. So in terms of did they hit the mark, yes they did.

As for practicality though, I think it is much easier making the base sauce as done in the forum and then adding tomato paste, almond meal, spices etc to make individual curries. In a restaurant they will go through a big batch of each type of sauce a couple of times a week. I however, now have 3 kgs of Korma/Nut gravy of which you only use 2 heaped TBSP in one single serve curry! Hopefully the 20 or so packets I made up will defrost well!

I did tell him I wanted to make it just like they do in the restaurant, so I shall not complain!

Unfortunately I don't have any pics to post as it was difficult enough trying to watch and write everything down, so I shall post everything as well.

He did mention to me while we were making the gravies that when he's in the kitchen he can't smell a thing. The only time he notices the aroma is when he goes outside for a break/cigarette and comes back in.

A little different to BIR but hopefully it will interest some of you, and there do seem to be a lot of differences between our British vs Australian dishes. Ie a Tikka Masala here never has coconut powder in it, but pretty much every Madras is always coconut based.

Curry on,
Mark

[PaulP]

Hi Mark, welcome to the forum from rainy UK. (well it is raining where I am).

I'm sure myself and many other members would be really interested in what you have to post. I'd be really interested on what goes into those 3 sauces.

Cheers,

Paul.

[Ramirez]

 

Fantastic first post, Mark! Looking forward to the recipes.

[Malc.]

Welcome to the forum Mark, it would be good to try something alternative for a change. Look forward to reading the recipes.

[rallim]

Welcome Mark

What part of Australia do you hail from?

[Stephen Lindsay]

Wow Mark what an entrance, between jb and yourself this site has taken an upward spiral in the past two months.

Look forward to reading your posts.

[Panpot]

Welcome Mark I can't wait to read more. Perhaps now the powers that be could ensure that all your recipes are kept together as I have asked elsewhere, it just makes sense if we want to replicate a given chef's recipes and learn about regional or now international variations.Panpot

[artistpaul]

WELCOME Mark

Really looking forward to your posts, well done

Regards

Paul

[976bar]

Hi Mark and welcome to the forum

It would be good to see how things are done down under as opposed to here, looking forward to your posts!

[parker21]

hi mark this method is not new on this site the 3 pot method i raised a couple of years ago. the recipes are different but the idea is the same. and yes you are right that these bases or a combination of them can be used to make the faves or basically all of the dishes on the menu. glad to see that it has reappeared though.
btw welcome to the site and great first hand experience post allbeit aussie style and good on you cobber for getting in there.
regards
gary