hi,all
i asked him a lot of questions.
yes they re-use the oil ,it give the gravy a nice taste and encourage fermintation of the gravy? specially at night when the temperature of the restaurant goes down and there is no activity.as well they re-use it because they want to save money.
Not the oil it self which help the fermentation ,but the liquids that goes back to the gravy with the oil.
he told me every restaurant and take away is doing this
he thinks that the missing taste that all of us are looking for? is the fermintation which is happening in the gravy? because it is? never referegrated? it is always on the cooker (room temperature).
he told me every chef has his own secret spice formula ,chefs are very secretive about what they use , very expensive to employ, if you are not good with them they will leave you and go and at the end restaurant owners are going to loose ,because customers are getting use to specail taste and ingredients in their curry and if it is not the same every time they ordered they will notice it,and start asking questions,at the end we tell them but in majority of cases we loose this customer.
he told me that curry gravy basic? ingredients are the same in every restaurant and take away
onions ,garlic,ginger,tinned tomato,tomato paste,carrots, sweet red pepper, oil, plain water (no STOCK or MILK )? , salt, then you can choose from the following? (potatoes, chick pea, red lentils,sweet potatoes,? celery, ....etc) these are thickeners and give body to the gravy ).
two ingredients that the restaurant owner don't know is :
SPICE BLEND
HERB BLEND
he told me these make a great difference between a first class gravy and a normal gravy
the chef and only the chef know their ingredients.
i told him all the spices are the same ,he said no? there is VINDALLO ,bhuna,tikka,tandoria, MADRAS ,KORMA .. . etc ,pastes and spice blend in the market are they the same ?not all blends are the same .
i asked him what other ingredients in the gravy? ?tomato ketchup .....yes i notice he puts it .
sugar... yes if the onion taste is a little bitter.
monosodium glutamate? ? ....... i don't know may be the chef is using it,
tamarind puree....yes if the gravy is very sweet because the onion was sweet.
coloring ...... i don't know the chef know
any other secret ingredient? ?.........i don't know but the chef know.
at the end he told me making a gravy is a like any thing else in? cooking you have to taste and adjust ingredients from batch to batch.
do you fry garlic and ginger in the beginning of making the gravy or you add it at the end ?...
one of the chefs that i employed was doing it in the beginning and another one was adding it at the end with the oil? ?....it depend on which chef.

this is all as much as i can remember now.
i hope that i helped
thanks
ghanna