Curry Recipes Online
Supplementary Recipes (Curry Powders, Curry Paste, Restaurant Spice Mixes) => Supplementary Recipes (Spice Mixes, Masalas, Pastes, Oils, Stocks, etc) => Topic started by: bob3915 on November 30, 2013, 08:48 AM
-
Hi again, I've decided to try to make my own spiced oil using CA's recipe, now writing down the ingrediants and noticed "1 tbsp of green capsicum (diced)", just wanted to check this is right? I usually see capsicum in a fraction or grams, and 1 tbsp doesn't seem much. cheers, bob.
-
Welcome Bob,
I have no idea in regards to your question, but I'd be wary about going down the 'spiced oil route' at the beginning of your curry-making career. The subject has been endlessly debated on here, and noone has come to an agreement as to how much difference it makes to the finished curry. I'd just say it adds an extra level of complexity, when you really want to get your basic technique down.
Some members add extra oil at the start of the curry making process and then scoop this off at the end to start the next curry.
-
thanks for your reply fried, I've taken on board your info and I'll hold on for now with the spiced oil, what I done last time because I had no spiced oil, I used vegetable oil but added 2 tsps. of mr naga to it, not sure if this if normal practice or if anyone else would do it but it tasted and smelt good. cheers, bob.
-
Bob that's naga chilli oil you're making which is undeniably spiced oil but it's not what is meant by spiced oil in BIR cooking terms.
Personally, as mentioned by fried, I scoop excess oil off each finished curry and use that to start the next, it really is spiced oil and adds great depth to each curry.
-
This is a very old thread I know, but it is actually the most recent post on this topic as far as I can see. Rather than derail Naga's Chicken Ceylon thread I've posted here. The reason I am looking at it again is because the Chicken Ceylon and many other older recipes on the site call for the use of Spiced Oil. I remember years ago watching a video all about cooking a big batch of Onion Bhajis more or less just to get the oil. I'm not a fan of Onion Bhajis. Is it absolutely required to achieve the dish or is it insignificant? Is it a furphy?
I've been doing a fair bit of reading on this "Spiced oil", "Reclaimed oil". Back in 2008 /2009 (and earlier) quite a few members were looking at it as the possible missing link (5%), if such a thing existed. The most recent post I can find referring to it in the Supplementary Recipes board is this one from 5 years ago tomorrow. While high hopes existed back then, my reading of it all so far, indicates that it was a bit of a fizzer. One post even referred to it as "chasing shadows".
Member Ghanna posted a recipe for a spiced oil. http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=190.msg1078#msg1078 (http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=190.msg1078#msg1078) Others did as well and some advocated strongly in it's favour, but in reality most finished dish taste testing results were less than desired and even underwhelming.
-
Since I like to cook curries with an excess of oil, which I remove before serving, I simply set that oil aside (at room temperature) and use it whenever "spiced oil" would seem to be the order of the day.
** Phil.
-
So Phil, if a recipe calls for say 2 Tbsp of oil, do you use extra and then remove some? At what stage are you adding extra new oil to make up for depletion?
I cooked the Saffron base yesterday, half quantity so it used 250 ml of oil. I was only able to reclaim by skimming about 1/3 of it, 80 ml leaving about 40 ml / litre of base, or about 10 - 15 ml per dish served. No doubt some of this remaining oil will separate out in cooking the finished dish. The pre-cooked chicken covering sauce has another 100 ml of oil and when I add the chicken to a dish it will no doubt transfer oil over. I actually physically carry some over as well. Lamb is similarly oily. There would appear to be plenty of spiced oil already contained in the dishes so this is possibly why the previous investigations (in home kitchens) didn't provide any substantial results.
As for the commercial BIR practice of reclaiming oil. I would hazard to guess that it is mainly for profit / economics. Of course in doing so the end result would be a continual supply of regenerated spiced oil that would eventually contain a mix of very old to new oil and a spice profile of indeterminate makeup. This practice would of course give all curries produced there a similar undertone.
I'm just wondering if the final consensus was that for our purposes, as home cooks in the BIR style, this procedure is redundant. More recent recipe postings do not place any emphasis on Spiced Oil at all. How many here still actively use it? Does it make any significant difference to the end product?
-
So Phil, if a recipe calls for say 2 Tbsp of oil, do you use extra and then remove some? At what stage are you adding extra new oil to make up for depletion?
Typically during the "bhunao" phase. If things are starting to stick, I prefer to add oil rather than base. Also I regard recommended quantities of oil as a lower bound, and typically add more if I feel there is insufficient.
A curry that is not almost covered in oil when cooking is over is not, to my mind, likely to turn out well. "Cook until the oil comes out" is a very old curry apophthegm, and if not sufficient comes out, I add more.
** Phil.
-
Thinking more about this spiced oil malarkey, I now begin to think that the easiest way to experiment with it is to start by simply frying some whole spices (mixed whole masala, whole garam masala, panch phoran, whatever) in garlic-and-ginger infused oil, and after the essential oils have had time to leach out, filtering the oil and using it to make a curry using a recipe and method with the results of which you are already very familiar. If the technique seems to add something (typically depth, IMHO), then you are onto a winner. If it makes no significant difference, then forget about it. I will be trying this for my next curry, and I will use Kris Dhillon's recipe and methodology to make a simple chicken Madras.
** Phil.
-
Thinking more about this spiced oil malarkey, I now begin to think that the easiest way to experiment with it is to start by simply frying some whole spices (mixed whole masala, whole garam masala, panch phoran, whatever) in garlic-and-ginger infused oil, and after the essential oils have had time to leach out, filtering the oil and using it to make a curry using a recipe and method with the results of which you are already very familiar. If the technique seems to add something (typically depth, IMHO), then you are onto a winner. If it makes no significant difference, then forget about it. I will be trying this for my next curry, and I will use Kris Dhillon's recipe and methodology to make a simple chicken Madras.
** Phil.
I will be interested to read your findings Phil.
-
I suspect you already have an expected outcome Phil. I tend to agree, but I also await your result with interest. I think I have just about read everything on this site on the topic, and followed any external links (including the dead one you revived). It would appear that the only really notable (claimed) success in this was achieved by a couple of members who went and somehow procured reclaimed oil from their local.
-
Hard to know (by introspection) whether or not I have an expected outcome. I certainly have a hope that it will add something (?depth?) but the real test will be to ask my wife to try it without telling her that it might taste different from a standard KD CM. We shall see, but first I have to make some base.
** Phil.
-
Had I read one of Naga's posts in the Chicken Ceylon thread properly and fully, I would have not asked him a question about this spiced oil "malarkey" in that thread. He has again kindly informed that he does not find it adds enough to the dish to warrant the additional "faffing about". This adds to my understanding from all I've read. Deliberately spicing oil obviously adds something in flavour to a dish and is a regular part of many dishes. BIR reclaimed oil smells like a BIR when it's used and it will certainly add some characteristic flavour to anything it's used in. These are probably 2 distinctly different things, one being by design and the other by circumstance.
-
A curry that is not almost covered in oil when cooking is over is not, to my mind, likely to turn out well. "Cook until the oil comes out" is a very old curry apophthegm, and if not sufficient comes out, I add more.
Honestly Phil you've already stated the best method of obtaining spiced oil which is to liberally douse the curry you're currently making in oil and spoon off the excess at the end. Instant spiced oil, absolutely no faffing required. And as you rightly say, a curry cooked with niggardly quantities of oil is demonstrably lacking in the taste department. So you're killing two birds with one method.
I've been doing it this way for years and I'm pretty sure we'd find some reference to its importance in the early days of the forum. Only works when cooking savoury curries though. Trying it with a korma would be a very calorific disappointment as the oil would never separate enough.
The depth that this oil adds to a curry is unmistakable so I'm at a loss when people say it adds nothing.
By the way, apopthegm? That's a new one on me; I'll stick to aphorism, it's easier to spell!
-
Ignore these 2 lobbyists for the sunflower oil industry. If you want spiced oil do it while pre-cooking your chicken or lamb. I'd use just enough oil to cook your curry. Nothing worse than a mouth full of grease. It's almost impossible to spoon of all the extra oil and get something edible.
How are you still alive Phil with your oil and salt addiction ;)?
-
I haven't come across many, if any, reports that spiced oil adds nothing. There are reports of extra flavour or depth being minimal though. The use of flavour infused oil would of course add something to a curry but it does not appear to have lived up to the early expectation of being that missing component in "The BIR taste".
I've used the reclaimed oil from various processes and been well pleased with the results. I've been equally happy with the curries made using fresh new oil. I would have to do as Phil intends or similar to really properly assess the merits of spiced oil. Side by side test with oil being the only variable.
SS, you make a very important point about use in savoury dishes only. Some of the milder curries I make do not suit it at all.
Maybe Phil is proof that the food warnings we receive are not always 100% accurate. ;)
-
How are you still alive Phil with your oil and salt addiction ;)?
No idea, and you forgot to mention the two or three 38gm tubes of Smarties a day ! (Not to mention the pure beef dripping that I fry or roast Western food in, the lard for cooking pancakes, the 1/4"-thick slices of butter on the toasted tea-cakes & crumpets, the Jersey cream in the coffee, and the fully-leaded milk that I seem to need to drink after foods such as, Bovril).
-
Ignore these 2 lobbyists for the sunflower oil industry.
Ohhhh, no,no,no!
Rapeseed oil only (virgin if you can afford it). Far better for the ticker if you have to use oil.
If you want spiced oil do it while pre-cooking your chicken or lamb.
Essentially the same thing as spooning excess from a curry, only definitely inferior. It has to be because the precook is essentially a boil wheres the curry cook is (to a greater degree) a frying technique and so releases more of the natural oils from the spices ... ergo tastier spiced oil. And as we know many restaurant/takeaways spoon the excess oil from the base sauce which again is inferior in my opinion.
I'd use just enough oil to cook your curry. Nothing worse than a mouth full of grease. It's almost impossible to spoon of all the extra oil and get something edible.
And yet so many delicious curries are served at restaurants bathed in excess oil!
How are you still alive Phil with your oil and salt addiction ;)?
Oil, salt and sugar ... well known preservatives.
-
And the food scientists have cracked the formula for combining the 3 that triggers the primal instinct to crave more.