Hi All,

I've tried a few times to make HappyChris' naans. I've followed to the letter, even tried making my own self rising flour. I just cannot seem to get the bubbles that many of you have managed to recreate. Mine end up as tiny bubbles, slightly larger than the bubbles on a poppadom. I don't believe heat on the tawa is the problem. I've cranked it right up and charred the bottom within seconds on some trials, but alas no large bubbles. 5 or 6 trials later, I put it down to the formulation of the SRF here in North America.

However I really like the flavour of the HappyChris naans, so I thought I might try it with dried yeast. I know that yeast and salt are enemies, so I cannot use self-raising flour.

Does anyone have any suggestions or pointers on how they might adapt that recipe for yeast? Just replace the SRF with regular flour and add half a teaspoon of yeast? Appreciate any and all suggestions. Wife is sick of me chucking out naan because "they aren't perfect".

Also would someone be able to point me to the word doc or text recipe that someone did that summarized the HappyChris video?

Thanks!
Josh

After eating at well over a hundred curry restaurants across Canada and the US, I thought I'd post this as "typical" for anyone who travels over here and wants a curry.



Clockwise from top right:

Chicken Tikka Masala - notice the capsicum and onion chunks. Robustly spiced, this bears little resemblance at all to BIR CTM. No sweetness, no cream, no coconut. Its more like a cross between a BIR Jalfrezi and Curryhell's North Indian Special. The chicken tikka is mostly similar to BIR though.

Pilau Rice - almost always with cumin seeds (and often way too many) this one has peas. Colourings other than turmeric aren't all that common.

King Prawn Korma - it may look like a BIR korma, but its not. Not even slightly sweet, it is a mild dish with either almond or cashew powder and cream. The absence of a sweetener and coconut makes it a very different dish to BIR. The "standard" starter curry for the less adventurous tends to be Butter Chicken.

Chicken Madras - at first glance, it could be a BIR Madras, but again, not even close. Notice the curry leaves and mustard seeds. In addition, this dish has coconut. Its actually quite a tasty curry, but I can't think of any BIR dish that I'd equate it with. I usually order it "as hot as you can make it" in order to get it close to BIR Madras heat. Only a Vindaloo over here is what I would classify as a hot(ter) curry.

The curries themselves are almost always made with a base gravy, but are more heavily spiced than BIR, but with much less chilli across the board.

The net of it is, there's some decent curry houses out there - but if you're looking for BIR you will most definitely be out of luck.

-- Josh

I noticed a link to this recipe on another post... http://thoughtsfromajoy.wordpress.com/2012/08/29/the-king-of-kebabs-perfect-for-a-fathers-day-lunch-or-dinner/

Not having had tandoori chicken in over a decade, I thought I'd try this recipe out. Here are some pics:





I intended to follow the recipe to spec, although some of the measurements are suspect or unclear. For example, that's considerably more than a teaspoon of whole cardamon in the "Kebab Garam Masala". There is also no measurement of garam that actually gets applied to the chicken. I guessed here and there but followed to spec mostly.

The instruction on prepping the whole chicken for tandoori, as well as the stage 1 marinade were very useful and could be applied to different variations of the main marinade.

I was expecting to be disappointed by the end result, as it seemed quite simple and devoid of many of the "BIR tikka" marinade ingredients. The result was actually delicious. I will play with the marinade going forward though to try and replicate closer to the tandoori flavour I remember.

-- Josh

Here's some pics of tonights dinner.

Everything turned out great. No issues with the BIR quality of this whatsoever.

I am hoping to get back to the UK later this summer and compare to true BIR fare.

Razor's Seekh Kebab
Chewytikka Jhal Frezi
CBM Madras

Everything was to spec, with the exception of an added tablespoon of Ashoka Bunjara in the Madras. The base was Chewy's one-hour pressure cooker version.

Really liked how the 'fresh' heat of the minced green chillies in the Jalfrezi, contrasted with the Kashmiri Mirch of the Madras. Both were excellent.

-- Josh

Hi cr0!

Its been about a year since I've posted on the forum, but I've tried to stay semi-regular in following the goings-on in our quest for BIR! Personal and other issues had meant I wasn't able to give the forum my full participation it deserves, but I'm back now.

Over the last year, my curry quality has improved significantly, due much in part to new learnings on the forum, and the input of some of members, new and old. (And thanks Michael T. for sending some Rajah Premium curry powder over to Canada!)

TECHNIQUE - I think the notion of high heat and singeing spices has been around in different terms for some time. I think the work of the Fleet 5 and the video demos highlighted just how important this was, and input from Chef Az spelled it out for us. About a year ago, I was having good success with the Taz method, which in hindsight was a different way of properly cooking the spices, in a "less scary" way by reducing a small amount of base. After some practice, I feel I've got spice frying well in hand.

BIR STANDARD PROCEDURE - following BIR standard procedures I now believe is also key. Aluminium pans, chef's spoons, premixed garlic/ginger pastes, puree mixes, etc. Moving to high heat with a proper aluminum pan, and moving to a chefs spoon instead of my old wooden one have made the whole experience more authentic, and the quality of the curries have followed suit. For example, I always had a problem with frying my freshly minced garlic and ginger - it burned if I used high heat. Using a pureed mix with a little oil has reduced the chances of burning significantly.

In any case, here's some pics of last night's work. Note the new "home" commercial gas stove. I can't say definitively if high heat is "necessary" to achieve smoky BIR flavour, but this new stove has produced my best curries ever.

Its a Chicken Madras (Chewytikka/Zeera), and King Prawn Tikka Masala (Mick's), Pilau Rice (RobinB's). The base is Julian's Curry2Go.

Cheers,
Josh