Topic: How to Make Spicy Oil ? The Secret to Truly Replicating BIR curries?

[Stephen Lindsay]

What is Panch Phoran please?

Panch Phoran is a mixture of 5 spices in equal quantities:

Fenugreek
Nigella seed
Mustard seed
Fennel seed
Cumin seed

It is rarely if ever mentioned in BIR recipes, but you will fine it in older curry cookery books dating from the sixties and seventies. When you make up Panch Phoran use small measures, e.g. a half teaspoon of each spice.

[jasper]

In my local curryhouse they always fry a few kilos of onions in a lot of oil (few liter), they add some red bell pepper, garlic, ginger, tomatopaste and a few tomatoes together with a spicemix consisting of:

4 parts  paprika
1 part  turmeric
1 part coriander
1 part cumin
1 part salt

The scoop of the oil after (1 hour of boiling) and they put it in a jar.

When making the final curry they use a base sauce, they put in a little bit of the fried onion mix (from above) and they put in a few spoons of the oil. The oil has a nice red color.

So I think CA is on the right way with the oil, but why not simply add a little bit more oil to our base sauce and scoop that off??

grtz Jasper

[Cory Ander]

Hi Jasper,

The "fried onion mix" sounds like the base to me?  Do they have a blended and an unblended version of the same thing?

Ahhh, I see, this is similar to the base ingredients but fried (no water)?  In which case, it isn't too dissimilar to how I produced my spiced oil then? 

why not simply add a little bit more oil to our base sauce and scoop that off?

Some members do this Jasper.  No doubt some BIRs do too.  Some BIRs no doubt use "reclaimed oil" from other sources (e.g. their deep fat fryers).  Some members reclaim the oil from to top of their final curries. 

It seems to me that reclaiming the oil from the base is bound to denude the base of some spiciness.  I therefore prefer to stir the oil back into the base.  You could compensate for this by adding more spice to the base, I suppose, and at least some of the spiced oil goes back into the final dish.

My personal preference is to synthesise the spiced oil to ensure better control of consistency and quality.  I also scoop off surplus oil from the final curry and use this.

Whatever the source, there is little doubt that the spiced oil contains oodles of BIR flavour and smell.

I suppose there are no rights or wrongs, just alternatives.

[JerryM]

jasper,

the recipe u describe reminds me of "onion" paste or bunjarra. i think the extra oil must be what enables them to cook it much quicker than the methods posted on this site (takes around 3hrs c/w with their 1 hr).

[Razor]

Hi CA,

Are you still using this spiced oil or have you developed it any further?

Ray

[artistpaul]

Hi Guys and Gals

I know for certain that most Chinese TAs / restaurants always use 'sasoned oil' or as they refer to it as 'lian' ( tempered by fire )

They obviously produce large quantities for their TAs but a Chinese chef told me to scale down to use

600 ml Sunflower or veg oil

1 inch piece of peeled ginger chopped into 6 parts

Fry until ginger becomes a very deep golden brown

Remove ginger and bottle when cooled

No need to store in a fridge as no garlic has been fried in it the Chef stressed

Ive made it for years and it transforms fried rice dishes especially, but it is used for all cooking as that is what he said

He was at pains to point out they never  use fresh unseasoned oil except for the chip fryer

Cheers Paul

[JerryM]

artistpaul,

intriguing. what temp do u have the oil at.

i tried 70:30 ginger:garlic on my healthy curry but it did not work (as opposed to 30:70 say). i intend to re try when i cook properly on my next base. i'm searching for a taste and planning a TA to get a better handle on it. it's something simple and this could well be it.

effectively in the BIR cooking u are making this lian in the 1st stage of dish frying - it'll be interesting to find if u can get the heat out of the ginger but still extract the maximum flavour given that in BIR u have the garlic to contend with that fries more quickly (less dense i guess).

[PaulP]

In my local curryhouse they always fry a few kilos of onions in a lot of oil (few liter), they add some red bell pepper, garlic, ginger, tomatopaste and a few tomatoes together with a spicemix consisting of:

4 parts  paprika
1 part  turmeric
1 part coriander
1 part cumin
1 part salt

The scoop of the oil after (1 hour of boiling) and they put it in a jar.

When making the final curry they use a base sauce, they put in a little bit of the fried onion mix (from above) and they put in a few spoons of the oil. The oil has a nice red color.

So I think CA is on the right way with the oil, but why not simply add a little bit more oil to our base sauce and scoop that off??

grtz Jasper

Sorry to resurrect this old thread but I was taken aback by the post above from Jasper as it is so similar to the spiced oil recipe that I have adopted recently and that I have posted about previously.

I firmly believe that the last 5 or 10% of taste and aroma that many of us feel are missing can only be achieved through using special or spiced oil. I don't believe it's possible to recreate this at home just by cooking a 2.5 to 3 litre base for a couple of hours, whatever the recipe.

The oil recipe I'm using was devised by Pete (sced) from the other forum after he got talking to some TA staff who were having a fag break. Pete is a really nice guy and I'm not going to post his recipe here but the princples are interesting and maybe cr0 members who want to close the gap would be prepared to start experimenting on recipes like this and we could collaborate:

Several litres of fresh oil.
A large amount of chopped onions, probably 2x what you would use for a base sauce.
Several chopped peppers.
A quantity of whole peeled garlic cloves.
A large quantity of mix powder.

Basically the vegetables are fried first for about an hour, the garlic is then crushed into the oil (it is very soft by now) then the spices added and it is cooked for another hour or so.

Now you might think that something would burn, at least the spices but if you cook it on a low heat so it bubbles away nicely nothing gets burned. I used an oil thermometer on my last batch and the temperature stayed at 105 degrees C for the whole cooking process.

After cooking the oil is poured through a strainer and the onion/pepper mix is saved to add to your curries if you wish - it tastes very good.

Then make your base using this oil and cook with this oil. It freezes fine and can be rapidly defrosted for re-use.

I'm not saying all TAs do this, I'm sure they don't but I'm certain that some of them do. The same effect may be achieved in other ways I'm sure such as cooking huge bases (40 litres+) or reclaiming.

I'm still trying to fine tune but I feel this is the only way to advance our curries towards 100% BIR.
There is talk on the forum recently about new ventures and collaborations but I think plently of the recipes on this forum are fine as they are and we won't ever get 100% BIR just by coming up with minor variations on a base recipe made in home-style quantities.

A mistake that may be made when we talk about spiced oil is to believe that moorish taste comes from spices alone. IMO it is the taste of the onions in the oil as much as it is the spices.

Is anybody else interested in trying to develop this further?

Paul

[gazman1976]

i would have a go in that direction paul

[currymonster]

Hi Paul,

I agree completely with your views. I think its this moorish onion taste which is missing from my curries. I eagerly await any further info/test results and could maybe find some time to participate in testing if you need more people.

CM