Chicken: Jalfrezi, Jalfreji, Jalfresi

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I'm surprised by all the positive comments for Patak's. Blecch! Patak's is the Indian equivalent of hamburger helper or Prego pasta sauce.

Do all of you really find fresh spices to be so much trouble? I cook Indian 2 or 3 times a month. Once you buy your spices, they last quite awhile and are cheaper and vastly better tasting than buying sauce that comes in a jar.
no,not at all steve like most on here i enjoy the prep/real stuff etc that's why i post the pics as well as the finished article.it's just a question of time sometimes.i work from 8am til 7pm 6 days a week during the property "season".i tend to use the pastes rather than the sauces & the pastes are excellent imo.is it the sauces that are "blecch" or the pastes or both?
 
Sauces mostly. I've bought the pastes before and they're passable in a pinch. But the sauces all have a stale flavor that reminds me of leftovers.
hmmmm,wonder if the stuff you get over there is made under licence elsewhere & not a uk import? i like my food(as you know!) & i've never noticed anything unpleasant like a stale flavour....wouldn't use it if there was.
mystery eh?
 
hmmmm,wonder if the stuff you get over there is made under licence elsewhere & not a uk import? i like my food(as you know!) & i've never noticed anything unpleasant like a stale flavour....wouldn't use it if there was.
mystery eh?
Not a much curry consumed in this country, so it very well could be because they sit on the shelf longer over here.

In any case, the missus and I used to have curry night once a week. I bought a cookbook of 50 curry recipes and made a different recipe from the book every week for a year (well, a couple weeks short of a year I reckon :rolleyes:). There was enough variation in the recipes that we never grew tired of it. I only had to buy about a dozen or so different spices that covered almost every recipe. It's amazing all the different flavors you can get by switching up just a handful of spices.
 
Not a much curry consumed in this country, so it very well could be because they sit on the shelf longer over here.

In any case, the missus and I used to have curry night once a week. I bought a cookbook of 50 curry recipes and made a different recipe from the book every week for a year (well, a couple weeks short of a year I reckon :rolleyes:). There was enough variation in the recipes that we never grew tired of it. I only had to buy about a dozen or so different spices that covered almost every recipe. It's amazing all the different flavors you can get by switching up just a handful of spices.
that's the point i was trying to make earlier in the thread about peppers in jalfrezi.you know as well as i do steve that no indian restaurant in the world has 20-30 minutes to cook a dish unless it is a specialist dish that requires on the ticket prep/cook & service.they have 3 or 4 basic stock "gravies" kept warm on the back burners to which the chef adds the ingredients that make that gravy into the dish ordered.usually in less than 5 mins.
indian food is a wonderfully diverse cuisine with very subtle flavours,it's a shame that some less than good restaurants either colour people's judgement or put them off the food altogether with rip off imitations,same with mexican food too,well,over here it is anyway.
talking about mexican grub i was on holiday in cancun years ago & we hired a jeep & drove down to tulum,chichen itza & xelha to visit the mayan ruins & do some snorkelling @ the lagoon.ate some "proper" mexican food whilst driving around....unbelievable stuff:yum:!in one bar/restaurant the owner who was quite rightly proud of his country's cuisine/history told us that one of the mayan rulers(forget which) had 3 meals a day throughout his very long reign & no two dishes were the same.now that is diverse cuisine.reckon he was telling the truth steve? i'd like to think he was
 
i don't see any peppers in the recipe margi.one of the basic ingredients for a jalfrezi is peppers.sometimes green sometimes red or both.without the peppers what you have is a basic curry.also no indian or pakistani chef(both have their own version of jalfrezi) would use chilli flakes.green finger chillies would be used.
This is a good version H and the chef gives a good reason why its called
Chicken Curry Recipe: Restaurant Style Chicken Jalfrezi; Shaan Khan, New Indian Cuisine - YouTube
 
talking about mexican grub i was on holiday in cancun years ago & we hired a jeep & drove down to tulum,chichen itza & xelha to visit the mayan ruins & do some snorkelling @ the lagoon.ate some "proper" mexican food whilst driving around....unbelievable stuff:yum:!in one bar/restaurant the owner who was quite rightly proud of his country's cuisine/history told us that one of the mayan rulers(forget which) had 3 meals a day throughout his very long reign & no two dishes were the same.now that is diverse cuisine.reckon he was telling the truth steve? i'd like to think he was
Wouldn't surprise me a bit, Harry. People sometimes forget that so many ingredients now considered integral to European and Asian cultures originally came from this continent. Mayans had been cooking with tomatoes, chilis, chocolate, corn, and beans for a thousand years before the first European explorers set foot here.

Unless you're in a state that borders it, Most Mexican restaurant food in the US tends to be limited to street food like tacos, enchiladas, tamales, and burritos. But as you found out, there's much more out there.

You've reminded me that I have a couple of Mexican cookbooks that I haven't dug into for awhile.
 
Wouldn't surprise me a bit, Harry. People sometimes forget that so many ingredients now considered integral to European and Asian cultures originally came from this continent. Mayans had been cooking with tomatoes, chilis, chocolate, corn, and beans for a thousand years before the first European explorers set foot here.

Unless you're in a state that borders it, Most Mexican restaurant food in the US tends to be limited to street food like tacos, enchiladas, tamales, and burritos. But as you found out, there's much more out there.

You've reminded me that I have a couple of Mexican cookbooks that I haven't dug into for awhile.
well get diggin' then!!
 
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