Topic: Sample of curry gravy

[pete]

I have posted this elsewhere, but this is a picture of some curry gravy.
I saw it scooped out of the pot
It is the genuine article.
It is quite nice.
It has a very oily feel to it and a slight smell of poppadoms
That is hardly surprising as they were cooking about fifty of them right next to the pot.
It doesn't have the taste
The main flavour is cooked onions
There is very little spice about it

[DARTHPHALL]

Is this the plain Curry Gravy you bought from your local BIR that you mentioned in a post many Moons ago  ?? .

[pete]

This is a new sample from somewhere else.
It is very different.
It makes me doubt whether I was given proper curry gravy that time.
I saw this scooped from the curry gravy pot.
It's oily, sweet, yellowy orange and tastes mainly of boiled "fried" onions.
Not very spicy

[CurryCrazy]

This has me confused!!!

I went to my local BIR last night. They have an open kitchen so you can see what is going on.

When they made my curry there was nothing that looked like this. First they put oil in a pan then added the chicken and what looked like a fairly thick paste They heated this for maybe 30 seconds, then added a ladle full of a clear looking liquid. I guess this is some kind of stock. This would have to be vegetable stock because it looks as though it goes into every curry (it was in a Huge catering pan). They boiled this for 3 or 4 minutes then kept adding a little more stock every now an then. I didn't see anything else being added 'cause I was too busy taliking with the manager!!!!!

At no time did I see any gravy that looked like this picture. I'm guessing every restaurant has it's own way of achieving a similar result.

Also I've seen written many times about the heat used in restaurants not being able to be achieved at home. I'm not convinced. For sure their burners in the restaurant look like rocket engines, but when I cook a curry at home the entire kitchen (and me) can sometimes get covered in burning spitting oil (little red dots of oil all over the kitchen makes me Mr popular with the Mrs ;D). Last night in the restaurant the heat looked much more controlled and nobody was running around swearing and there wasn't a burning blister to be seen ;D ;D ;D

All this leads me to believe there is no secret ingredient or technique just the correct combination of spices. I think personally I'm over complicating and over spicing my curries and it's time to go back to basics!!!!

[pete]

Hi Curry Crazy
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? I am sure the "stock" you saw was their version of curry gravy.
It is a really thin cosistancy like a soup and they evaporate it off.
It's kept in the largest pot on the cooker
Probably about 14 inches tall!
My picture was when it had cooled a little and it does thicken a bit

[Mark J]

And dont think it had to be vegetable stock either!!

[Ian S.]

This looks to have the same vibrant colour that my favourite local takeway's curries have (as opposed to those from restaurants 'up the road from me' in Southend, which tend to be more brown).

I like the idea of watery base sauces that have to be evaporated down in the final dish.  I dunno why, but it just 'feels' right.

[merrybaker]

IIt has a very oily feel to it and a slight smell of poppadoms
That is hardly surprising as they were cooking about fifty of them right next to the pot.

Any chance oil that had previously fried poppadums could have been used for the gravy?

[DARTHPHALL]

My local has the same bright colour 

[Blondie]

Hi Merrybaker,

It may be the case that the oil could be used to make a curry after being used to cook popadums but AND THIS IS FACT, if the oil is used to cook curry AND THEN used to cook Popadums THE POPADUMS WILL TAKE ALMOST ALL OF THE COLOUR FROM THE OIL.  In my neck of the woods popadums are always very very pale almost white, so curry and then popadums does not work.

hope this helps,

Blondie