Curry Recipes Online
Curry Chat => Lets Talk Curry => Topic started by: bmouthboyo on March 15, 2014, 03:23 PM
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As a little community help at my local youth centre I will hopefully running a short 7 week course that I have pitched as 'Curry Club' and will be teaching 12 to 18 year olds how the basics I learnt of BIR cooking. I am no expert by any means but thought it might be a fun thing to try with a group of upto 10 people, working in pairs.
I hope to go over creating a base gravy, the different spice mix's, the main dishes and the fundamentals of cooking BIR curry. This is no expert class by any stretch of the imagination so I do not need to worry about too finer details.
I was wondering if you guys could recommend any pointers on what might be good ideas to cover over the 7, 45minute sessions.
So far my initial outline would be:
- Familiarise with different spices, Spice mixes / massalas, ingredients used etc.
- Base gravies, the main BIR dishes
- Releasing oils in spices, burner control, preparing ingredients
- Cooking main dishes (Korma, Madras, Pathia, Vindaloo, Jalfrezi)
- Experimenting with base / dishes
- Side dishes (Alou Gobi, Dhals, Roti)
Unfortunately all we have access to are portable burners. No ovens or microwave.
Any help much appreciated, Cheers.
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I think you should include pulao rice, which many (perhaps most) will regard as the standard accompaniment, and also include a small selection of side dishes such as onion salad, mango chutney and a hot pickle such as mango, lime, chilli or mixed. Also well worth demonstrating how to cook poppadum without burning them (use TRS or Rajah Madras plain poppadums ; far easier than the thinner, more widely available ones. although if you can demonstrate how to cook masala poppadum successfully, so much the better).
** Phil.
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You could also think about structuring your meetings along the lines of cookery book chapters - e.g. starters, base gravy, main courses, side dishes, and even puddings if you wish to go that far.
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All sounds a bit advanced for that age group to me - hope I'm not underestimating them, but you might want to keep it simple.
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Give them a copy of Meggeths book.
http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php/topic,12724.0.html (http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php/topic,12724.0.html)
Its free and a good starting point.
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quite a challenge and very brave.
they need to do rather than listen would be my no 1 ie feel they can make mistakes
they also live by electronic gadgets - i would select vid from youtube and get them to replicate it themselves. h4ppy-chris probably has the best overall selection (i've more vid from him on my little ipod touch than by anyone else)
time is going to be against - the 45 min slot not the overall. some advance prep going to be needed ie part cook base etc. i would leave meat out.
probably need some rule to effect a pause when needed to filter learning across all the groups as things go wrong (as each group hits pitfalls).
for me you know yourself what they need to learn - don't be too ambitious though. only joking but a 2nd course maybe. rome not built in a day.
very best wishes it's a lovely offering
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Hi Jerry, how do you save YouTube videos onto your iPod?
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Onion bhajis where they can get their hands in the mix and make the balls etc - not sure about the frying bit you may have to do that - get them to make up the mint sauce etc yogurt milk stir finger in taste testing.... etc
best, Rich
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H4ppy Naans?
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I run a similar event at the secondary school I work at as part of a yearly thing called "activity days" - it's to give the younger first and second year pupils something different to do while the older ones are away on study leave before the exams. I ran it for the first time last year and it was very oversubscribed as a one day event with 30 pupils, it was a lot to get through in a day - I covered pakoras, base, pilau rice, naans, chicken tikka masala and poppadoms, using C2Go recipes as a starting point.
This year I'm making it more manageable by doing it over two days and reducing the numbers with 10 pupils each day, and plan to use the glasgow recipes as a reference and cover the same sort of things but scale it right down so they each make base sauce and pilau rather than watch me do it then dish it out to them to use, as it can get a bit boring watching someone else cook and prattle on.
Having a word at your local college or place that does evening classes to see what kind of cookery classes they offer, and try and get a breakdown of what they cover and when - it could be useful to you when working out timings and expectations?
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Hi Jerry, how do you save YouTube videos onto your iPod?
use something like freemake video downloader to download them, and freemake video converter to convert to mp4 where necessary. both are free.
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H4ppy Naans?
difficult to achieve in a 45 minute lesson, what with all the waiting around, although you could do a few photos and a Blue Peter style "here's some dough I made earlier"
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I used to teach Art to school leavers, and I can definitely advise to keep things as simple as possible.
Try not to give them information overload, keep things more practical for them.
Explain, demonstrate and get them to do.
As they are only short sessions, I'd suggest the first, although might be a bit of an overload, just explain and show all the basic ingredients to make the meals and give printed recipe handouts.
Things like Base (inc. a small version that would be easy for them to make at home in the future), spices, spice mix, pre-cooked meat/veg, naans, g&g paste, tikka, kebabs etc.
Then you won't have to get them to make all those in the class, you make them yourself and bring them to the following sessions for them to actually start cooking.
Each session could then focus on them cooking one item, rice, naans, a few different style curries, some starters for example, and again printed handouts of the recipes they are cooking.
Hope that helps
Martin
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H4ppy Naans?
difficult to achieve in a 45 minute lesson, what with all the waiting around, although you could do a few photos and a Blue Peter style "here's some dough I made earlier"
I appreciate that mate, and some preparation would be required. But the same can be said for almost anything. You're not going to make a base in 45 minutes, which is the starting point IMO (after getting to know the spices).
I think you have a pretty decent outline there, boyo :)
I'd go for:
Week 1: Introduction to spices, and familiarisation - frying spices and how the taste changes
Week 2: Base sauce - theory, preparation and cooking (you might have to finish them, but they can start them :))
Week 3: Make a dish - maybe a Madras - not too complicated ingredients-wise but has good learning points for technique.
Week 4: Make pre-prepared naans and maybe chapatis
Week 5: Rice - cooking techniques and colouring (kids like colouring - get some crazy food colours and let them invent their own)
Week 6: Starters - bhajis and pakora.
Week 7: Phone in sick :)
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You're not going to make a base in 45 minutes
I disagree. I make my base sauce in well under 45 minutes so, if I can do it, so can boyo and his students.
I use only 1 or 2 onions as well - ideal for a cooking lesson, I'd have thought.
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There you go then, boyo. George's base is the way to go ????
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Thanks for that guys some great tips and pointers. 45 minutes is no time at all really and the base will be a struggle. I think a "here's one I prepared earlier" job, although I will get them to measure and chop the ingredients etc but I'll take them home and finish off after.
Whilst my base is heating up we can go over the spice mix, teach a little about the spices then what they will really want to do is cook!
After the first session I really want to focus on them getting hands on cooking different BIR and learning as they go which should be fine for 45 mins (30 inc cleaning time). A sin I know but I have a rice cooker that can do the rice for all, I'll warm up a vat of base they ladle out from. I like Corry Anders recipes as the meat is cooked in the oil so no pre cooking etc, his recipes turn out great too.
At that age I want them to just have fun cooking, learning to measure and prepare ingredients, a bit of the BIR journey and taste their creations. In years to come they can fuss over the finer points lol.
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Good luck mate. Let us know how it goes.
Can I sign up for the class? :D
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Hi Jerry, how do you save YouTube videos onto your iPod?
use something like freemake video downloader to download them, and freemake video converter to convert to mp4 where necessary. both are free.
I use Firefox with Download Helper installed, it's free. Really easy to use :o)
Cheers,
Ken
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Sadly the more you tell the less you sell. If we could all cook BIR the humble take aways and restaurants would close by their thousands . maybe? But all the best Andy
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Hi Jerry, how do you save YouTube videos onto your iPod?
use something like freemake video downloader to download them, and freemake video converter to convert to mp4 where necessary. both are free.
I use Firefox with Download Helper installed, it's free. Really easy to use :o)
Cheers,
Ken
Thanks guys. But once downloaded and mp4'd, how do you get them onto the iPod? Just through iTunes I guess?
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natterjak,
i use 3 firefox addon:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/flash-video-downloader/ (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/flash-video-downloader/)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/good-old-youtube-downloader/?src=api (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/good-old-youtube-downloader/?src=api)
https://www.getfirebug.com/ (https://www.getfirebug.com/)
sometimes need http://www.any-video-converter.com/ (http://www.any-video-converter.com/) to convert mp4 to ipod format.
i use itunes on desk top to transfer files to ipod app called "file viewer"
sounds a lot of hassle but needs must and it works a treat.
ps sorry for diverting main post
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Thanks Jerry. I was experimenting last night and found a free app which will download mp4 from YouTube, then an iPad app which allows you to upload off laptop onto the iPad and play the videos offline. Very similar to what you've described, but a different one.
I'm gonna use it to get H4C's base gravy vid on the iPad so it plays offline, then take it in to show to the head chef in my local BIR and see if I can get his opinion on what the magic paste contains and how it might be cooked. I'm not at all convinced by talk of secret ingredients. It'll just be onions, G&g paste, spices and toms cooked in the right way. Will be interesting to see what a super experienced BIR chef who really "knows his onions" has to say about it :)