Topic: LB's Balti Spice Mix

[Rai]

Yes, I undertand that santa.  But once the water has evaporated, the oil and the spices (and sugar) will rapidly get to well above 100 and probably up to 200 and above wont they?  And the spices need that to cook properly dont they?  Isnt this when the oil separates (rises to the surface)?

I dont know enough about it.  What temperature do spices need to cook properly and release their volatile oils?  Much higher than 100C I presume?  Interesting, as you say.

[JerryM]

Rai,

very much appreciate your thoughts and input as that's what we here for ie to learn off each other.

It sounds like a shed load of salt in there (almost 9%) although i see there is also an even bigger shed load in the original (almost 17%!)

i must admit one of the reasons for doing so much cooking myself is to be healthy. i only normally put salt on chips and that's it for my diet. unfortunately i find sometimes you can't avoid something and this is one of them. i don' know what the salt does but i feel it's crucial. the 17% is straight from Lynette Baxters book. when you taste the spice mix powder the 1st thing to hit you is the salt. but it does seem to be crucial in getting towards the BIR taste. trying to achieve a balance i've left the salt qty unchanged in the revised recipe ie 9% which is getting more healthy but not loosing the taste it brings(don't forget i'm only using 1 tsp of the spice mix per person so the salt in each curry is small). All of the bases that i've made have around 1 tbsp so again not a lot when divided into 200ml portions.

And sugar in a spice mix?  Is that right?  Whats going to happen to that when you fry it in hot oil do you think?  Melt and then burn I imagine?

i came to this via CA and the development curry work. i used the tomato sauce in the CRO development madras and found the sweetness was ott. i've also tried adding sugar once the base has been added. both give a sort of sickly taste for me which is not like the sweetness i crave in the BIR. i put the spice mix in the tom puree/water paste and i think as Secret Santa suggests adding at this stage brings about some caramalisation and a different type of sweetness. as for the hot temp i did not see any difference in cooking the LB to cooking the LB+ albeit i am using an electric hob on full.

hope this helps a little and please keep posting as the timeline of the RCO site suggest this is a difficult one to crack and we need everyone on their toes and putting their 2p in.

[Secret Santa]

Isnt this when the oil separates (rises to the surface)?

I get the impression from what you have been saying that you cook in a more traditional style where the spices are cooked at a lower heat for a longer time, thus allowing the oil to separate from the garlic/ginger/onion/spice mix.
BIR style cooking doesn't allow for that. The spice cooking stage is all over in about ten seconds if you're cooking on high heat and the amount of fluid present at this time doesn't really allow any burning of spices or added sugar. Does that make sense?

[Rai]

Not sure why you get that impression santa. My logic is as follows:

1.  You need hot oil (with smoke points generally well up above 200C) to fry the spices sufficently to release their essential oils and flavour.  Without reaching these temeperatures (I dont know what temperatures these are?) the spices will remain uncooked and raw tasting or bitter?

2.  Prior to this the hot oil may be used to fry any onions (do you really add onions to your main dish santa? Is this bir style?), garlic, ginger, etc.  As you say, water will be present which will reduce the temperature of the oil (but to what temperature though, I dont know.  Somewhere between 100C and the smoke point of the oil presumably?)

3.  Then the oil is definately used to fry the spices (dry or in a paste).  Here (at some stage) we need the temperature of the oil to rise sufficiently (certainly above 100C?) to fry the spices regardless of whether its bir or authentic style.  The temperature will only rise as the water (from the onions, paste, tomato puree, etc, evaporates, hence the accompanying oil separation?

So I question the sense of adding sugar (to the spice mix) knowing that we want to fry the spices at these high temperatures (up towards 200C or so?  I dont know?) for them to release their flavours.  If so, I imagine the sugar (in the spice mix) would quickly melt and burn at these temeperatures.  If not, the temperature wont be hot enough for the spices to be sufficiently cooked?

Make sense? 

[JerryM]

I imagine the sugar (in the spice mix) would quickly melt and burn at these temeperatures

i am pretty sure this technically would happen.

all i can say is when i add sugar to the dish later ie when the base is in i feel i get a sickly sweetness.

when i add to the spice mix i don't get the sickly sweetness. i am only using an electric hob so i don't know what would happen with propane set up. i do heat the pan  till the oil is smoking and keep it on full while i cook the garlic/ginger paste, then the spice mix paste (spice mix, curry masala, tom puree all dissolved in 1/2 cup of water). the biggest problem i have is in stopping the pastes from burning by knowing when the water has almost gone. having the sugar in the spice mix makes no obvious difference during the cooking but does seem to solve my aim to get sweetness without the sort of pure sugar sickly taste.

the only answer is to give it a try if you have a problem on sweetness. if not don't use the LB+ version.

[JerryM]

just an update on efforts to find the best mix togo with the LB+ mix.

Made 8 off individual curries (200ml) using the ifindforu base and effectively the same madras recipe but with subtle changes in the spices (ratio of spice mix:curry powder, type of curry powder). Did very similar/same exercise last week using saffron base.

This week I had rajah hot madras curry powder to try out (really spot on). Spice preferences were mixed with 2 votes for 2 tsp LB+ spice mix per portion (ie 100:0) and 2 votes for 1 tsp LB+ spice mix and 1 tsp rajah (ie 50:50). The 100:0 ratio gave sweetness equivalent to BIR/TA where as the 50:50 gave a better depth of spice but lacked sweetness a little.

Conclusion:

1) kids will like LB+ x 2
2) adults will like LB+ x 1 and rajah x 1

[Rai]

As chris said previously, you dont really have any spices in the LB or LB+ spice mixes to give you any flavour.  Just coriander and cumin really. Paprika is there mainly for colour and chilli is there mainly for heat and colour.

I wouldnt expect to get much "depth of spice" or flavour from effectively just two spices jerry

[JerryM]

Rai,

i must admit i've wrestled with this "depth of spice" issue for a long time.

the traditional Indian spice is just not for me (cloves, turmeric, curry leaves and even cumin to an extent) - i hate the taste of pat chapman for example. it's got to be BIR as that's what i've been brought up on.

i had tried various spice combinations trying to gain "depth of spice" but without anyone spice overpowering the rest thinking this would get me closer to BIR taste. i also looked into increasing the spice in the base.

after a long period of making 1 off changes and comparing against a control and then comparing against a real BIR i've come to the conclusion that BIR is not heavily spiced at all.

by using a good base (i include rajver, ifindforu and saffron), using the "toffee" cooking technique and the LB spice mix /rajah curry powder in a 50/50 mix i feel i've got pretty close to the taste i'm after. when compared to the real BIR it was lacking sweetness and by adapting the LB to the LB+ i feel this has been sorted without getting a sickly taste. i believe the only thing missing now is the sort of smokey bbq flavour which i feel i'm going to need a proper wok burner to sort.

[Secret Santa]

I wouldnt expect to get much "depth of spice" or flavour from effectively just two spices jerry

And yet that's exactly what a lot of authentic dishes use (and sometimes only one or the other), relying instead on the onion, tomato, and meat juices to provide the majority of flavour. Perhaps that's why I'm not really into authentic Indian/pakistani food.

[Rai]

And yet that's exactly what a lot of authentic dishes use (and sometimes only one or the other)

Really?  Well, I never knew that!