Been working on my base wondering if anyone would consider it burnt or just well cooked?  What do you reckon?  It tastes good (I think) doesn't taste burnt.  The curries I've made from it are the best yet but I have changed my technique when cooking them! 

The first 3 pics are stage 1 cooked hard for 1 hour

Then I separately cooked in oil G&G, Mix powder & Tomato pur

VinoTinto.  Yeah, it worked a treat mate.  The smokey BBQ flavour was immense. They didn't flare up just gave out a huge amount of smoke that I'm sure will upset my neighbours.  My guess is that the heat will be intensified by covering which could over colour the meat etc but I thought I'd then wrap the meat in foil to stop the colouring but keep cooking them through!  I haven't tried this on a BBQ yet VinoT but I do cover my shish kebabs When in the Tandoor if the tandoor is too hot and the meat starts to brown too much and that works a treat!  Also seen a Tandoor Chef do that. 

I guess wood chip & covering would be even better!

I'm gonna try that mate - thanks

I doubt if the flavour will be anything like cooked in a tandoor but quite a lot of the time I want something different and familiar.

Cheers & good luck. 

Hi Chewy

Understood.   For what it's worth and as you know, most charcoal tandoor users have trouble keeping the heat when burning the coals on the bottom of the tandoor which restricts air flow etc... so I'm very interested to hear your results as I've not tried the charcoal & plate method resulting in extra airflow?

Mr. Punter

Just found a quote from Phil... Probably many years ago (do you still Support Phil?)

My view is that it is important to be open-minded about all ideas; if someone achieves success using a Patak's product, let he or she share tjheir success so that others can try to emulate it if they wish.  Patak's products are not evil, they are simply commercial versions of pastes (etc) that every Indian housewife would have made for herself in the past; preservatives are not evil, they are a useful adjunct in our modern lifestyle, and if a product can have a shelf life of (say) six months with preservative, or six days without, and still taste the same, then let us not rule it out simply because it contains "chemicals".  Everything that we eat/drink/respire contains chemicals, and we ourselves are made of chemicals; it can, I suggest, be useful to remind ourselves of that from time to time.  Read the late Jack Pridham's Chemophilia for an refreshing perspective on this from a very well informed and respected academic.

** Phil.

Hope you guys don't mind your earlier quotes being brought to date?

This is a forum after all!

I AGREE WITH THEM.   

If we want a BIR restaurant flavour, should we use Pataks?
If the restaurants use them, should we ignore them and say they are sheet or use them ourselves?

I found a great quote from back in 2009 by GEORGE...   and George, you are so right:

"I think I look at it in a completely different way! If BIRs which produce top flight BIR dishes use ready mixed pastes and other bought-in ingredients, then I suggest we need to. It seems highly likely they do - I've seen several commercial products in every BIR kitchen I've ever viewed. A key challenge must be to figure out exactly when and where these products are used, and to follow suit, even if it's unhealthy and the products contain loads of salt and horrible chemicals. Nobody said BIR food is good for you!
Report to Moderator     Logged"

I've even seen the 3 Pataks in 50% of kitchens I've been to in India!   Lol.... 

What's the problem with using them. Do we think we are "better than that" ?