Really???. French BIR made with stuff out of packets and you can sell 80 dishes a week to expats craving a good old BIR.  Doesn't say much for BIR then does it?

This thread answers many questions in one go.

So who is judging your output ?

Customers do also Phil. They freeze and eat perfectly after defrosting. Happy Chris recipe - never fails 

Time for the purists to look away. 5 minute instant base which I use to sell between 80 and 100 curries per week with no complaints - just lots of praise. Many of you will already be familiar with Shaheen. I combine their Onion Massalla paste with an Aldi soup ( I am in SW France but you can probably get something similar in the UK). Here goes :

Base and soup :



Base in pan :



Add soup and 1 litre of water then blend with electric hand wizzer. 2 minutes later :



Makes 6 x 2 person portions :


Works out at around 15 cents per portion with no tears or mess. trust me, I have been making/researching Indian food for over 45 years and this works. Soup is 30% carrots, 15% onions, 15% tomatoes, 10% leeks with added peppers and peas.

I will post some pics of finished curries later

Quote from: Hugoboss on June 04, 2020, 07:47 AM

No offence taken from you whatosoever Romain although other commentators seem to think that the 12000+ curries I have prepared for satisfied  and repeat customers over the past 3 years were all cooked "wrong". Cant wait to get them right and earn even more money 

I expect you will be rich and quite possibly famous

I will happily take the money Romain but stay anonymous thank you very much 

Thank you for your kind words HugoBoss. Appreciate it

I asked the question expecting this to be the answer. There seems to be two camps in the restaurant curry at home world. Those, like Phil and myself, that bloom their spices and those, like you, that don't. So I would venture the notion that what you are doing is emulating the blooming of the spices in a dry pan to some extent.

If you have the time and inclination to try blooming your spices in oil before adding the diluted tomato puree, I would love to hear if you get the same or similar flavours you are experiencing with this dry roasting technique.

I am close to the point that I would bet money that you will find the curry in which you bloom spices to be even better because the fat soluble compounds released by heating the spices wind up dissolved in the oil. Almost - because I haven't tried this dry roasting powdered spices myself.

I know, when I have tried liquid then spices, it's almost as if I've forgotten to add salt. Everything is somewhat flat and lifeless.

FWIW, my house and my local Indian restaurants smell exactly the same when I'm cooking curries and it's the point where I add powdered spices to the pan that it happens.

Romain, after 45 years of trying every method I have certainly used your approach many times also with success. However, I can cook up to 20 individual curries in one day and I prefer the small amount of liquid before dried spices as its less prone for error and everyone who eats my curries has no complaints whatsoever. This "new" method of dry roasting first helps me to maintain the safer approach but elevates the final outcome in my opinion. I can easily use your method of blooming the dried spices in oil first when I cook for myself and/or my wife so I will do a head to head at the weekend and post the flavour results.