Finally got round to making chicken Jalfrezi last night and it turned out really well. Even my son commented on how tasty it was. I did adapt it a tiny bit. Rather than the two tomatoes I put in a small tin of chopped tomatoes as I thought the sauce might be a bit too dry.

Next stop - the biryani.

Great! You have to have the freedom to adjust the recipe according to your taste and what you have got. Remember, I am always looking for good pictures!

this is where I have a different take on recipes from Mamta.

My view is that if you change a recipe, you have a different product, and can you call it by the same name? The extreme example of this is in restaurants, when one orders what is generally an accepted dish, only to be confronted by something very different, which is the chefs idea of what it is! I have fallen foul of this situation many times, not only in Indian restaurants.

I understand a jalfrezi to be an AngloIndian dish from Bengal, to use left over meat in an 'Indian style' dish. It is essentially a stir fry, and dry and hot with chillies. Would you add a tin of tomatoes to a Chinese stir fry? I think not, makes no sense.

If you want a dish with a sauce/gravy, then don't choose jalfrezi. There are hundreds of perfectly acceptable 'curries' with sauce/gravy, why invent another one?

Having said that, I once did an extensive survey of Indian restaurants in and around Chester, by ordering chicken jalfrezi in each restaurant. No two offerings were the same, ranging from brown goo with limp onions to thick tomato sauce with cream. All had a sauce/gravy, none was a jalfrezi as I understand it.

So Lapis, what did you do with the limp Jalfrezis' you ordered ? :D

forced it down, and made a note never to go back!

LOL!

Sorry Mamata but....There you go again Lapis. Linda made an adjustment to one of Mamtas recipes, she enjoyed it and her son enjoyed it, Mamta ok'd the fact that people have the freedom to adjust her recipes to suit their tastes not yours. Cant you be happy with that? Yet again you have to turn a positive post into something negative because of your need to share your bad experiences of british restaurant food. Yes we can all read wikipedia to state facts but Mamtas recipes and Mamtas website is there for people to help try cooking something they've never cooked before and to play around with those ingredients rather than buying takeway. My Indian cooking teacher always told me to never change anything because of the change in flavour that occurs. Yes I can see her point and I can see your point but like I said in my last post (that got deleted)...each to their own. Let people enjoy using Mamtas recipes to cook their own dishes (and adjust them to their taste) rather than going to the takeaway.

Cheers

Steve

P.S. Ive cooked the Jalfrezi a number of times and even though its delicious a bit of gravy wouldnt go astray.

3....2...1....post deleted.

I often do that jalfrezi recipe, and I prefer not to use tinned tomatoes. While i think that it's best to stick to the letter of a recipe when you first use it, I adapt recipes if I think I'd prefer it to be different in some specific way; that's how I ended up making a yoghurt-based dish that has both ground fenugreek seeds and dried fenugreek leaves. Many friends and family members have said they enjoy it.

Similarly, putting pastis into a Madhur Jaffrey Goan mussels and coconut dish and flamb?ing it was in idea that worked. We'd never have new recipes if people didn't experiment and adapt.

One of the problems with the idea that one should stick to the letter of the recipe is this: WHOSE recipe? I found three different recipes for the same dish once, from Elizabeth David, Keith Floyd and someone else.

But there's one thing where you really do need to stick religiously to the instructions, and that's cooking rice. When it comes to the absorption method, it's striking that what Mamta has to say is pretty much identical to what Madhur Jaffrey has to say. So, with some things, there really is THE right way to do it.

Phil

Somehow for me peppers and meat do not go together. For peppers with meat - I would prefer a chinese stir fry, though i am not too fond of it.

the point is that jalfrezi is a stir fry, meaning dry fry. Adding any water based liquid will turn it into something else. I could give several examples of turning one dish into another by inappropriate action, but that would labour the point.

Never have I heard such twaddle, changing recipes is how food evolves, when I visit India each region had their own make on a dish, some had more gravy than others some had more chilli than others,etc. etc.

I cook and eat lot of Indian, Thai and Vietnamese dishes and I love chillies (I grow my own) so if I put in more chillies than the recipe states it's not the same dish.........

nonsense of cause it is

Some people do not like chillies including Indians, if they omit chillies its not the same dish.

British Indian resturants differ because most are NOT Indian they are either Pakistani or Bangladeshi both meaters where as a lot of Indians being Hindu's do NOT eat meat, so if an Indian makes a jalfrazzi without meat does that mean it is not a jalfrazzi.

Whoever you are cook and enjoy, lifes to short, so enjoy it!!!!

Bon chance

fridgedoc

changing a recipe

fridgedoc said:

''Never have I heard such twaddle, changing recipes is how food evolves, when I visit India each region had their own make on a dish, some had more gravy than others some had more chilli than others,etc. etc.''

I don't agree (but note I don't make derogadatory comments, either!)

you mean changing recipes is how recipes evolve. Rubbish, recipes evolve because of necessitiy, because of change in location (and therefore ingredients) because of a better understanding, but not just because of a whim of the cook. If the recipe is good enough, why change it? If you don't like it, choose another. I accept there will be slight variatons, because cooks arent very pecise in what they do, but in a (good) restaurant situation, things are cooked the same way, each time.

''I cook and eat lot of Indian, Thai and Vietnamese dishes and I love chillies (I grow my own) so if I put in more chillies than the recipe states it's not the same dish.........

nonsense of cause it is''

I assume you mean 'of course it is'. Again, I would disagree, if the recipe has been developed to use a certain number of chillies, then one should follow the recipe, else choose another one. I agree that heat levels are a personal thing, but vindaloos need a lot of them (because the spicing and meat can cope with it) and other dishes would be spoilt if you put in too much chilli.

''Some people do not like chillies including Indians, if they omit chillies its not the same dish.'' But you have just conradicted yourself!

''British Indian resturants differ because most are NOT Indian they are either Pakistani or Bangladeshi both meateaters whereas a lot of Indians being Hindu's do NOT eat meat, so if an Indian makes a jalfrazzi without meat does that mean it is not a jalfrazzi.''

I think you will find a lot more Hindu's eat meat than you realize, but it depends on the State, somewhere between 15 and 60% of the population eats meat at sometime, and most of these are Hindus. Anyway, the reasoning is flawed, if people don't want to eat meat, they will not cook a dish which is specifically for meat, without it. Makes no sense, although we do a lot of it in the UK. A jalfrezi without meat is just a vegetable stir fry, not a jalfrezi.

''Whoever you are, cook and enjoy, lifes toO short, so enjoy it!!!!

Bon chance

fridgedoc''

and whoever you are, some of us have standards, and would like to think that our short time on this Earth is spent enjoying the finer things in life, because we can.

What is Jalfrazzy? is it a modified version of Jalfrezi?

I don't think that terms such as 'twaddle' and 'rubbish' are particularly civilised: they are rude, dismissive, and thus, aggressive and arrogant.

We can disagree, as we are all entitled to, but without using derogatory words towards others.

I think this 'heated debate' just goes to show no two people are alike, food is very important to us all and everyone is entitled to tweek and change things and still call it a recipe.

Let me give an example that makes clearer sense (to me anyway)-

A fried breakfast/fry up/sunday breakfast/cooked breaky or whatever you prefer to call it is essentially a big plate full of fried (and other cooking methods) meat products with a selection of bits and bobs.

One person will argue till blue in the fact that its not a fried breakfast unless its got bacon, fried eggs, fried bread, beans and a round of toast with a cup of tea. That for them is quite correctly a fried breakfast.

However other people will (and again quite correctly) tell you it must have sausages, others it needs black pudding, some might have scrambled eggs instead of fried, you need tomatoes, I like potato slices fried with it, must have mushroom... and any number of other changes (including chips) but none of them are wrong and all are still a fried breakfast/fry-up.

Even the methods for cooking can be completely changed and if you don't know thats whats been done and can't tell on your plate how can that be wrong ?

I cook many dishes on the stove top in a large pan, but the original dishes are cooked in the oven. I'm not a big fan of oven cooking because I'm a little experimental and when trying to come up with my version of something I've eaten, I need to be able to constantly taste and adjust.

Now If I put a plate of Greek Stifado in front of you and you had eaten it with me in a Greek restaurant, you would say its pretty much spot on. However they would probably have cooked it in an oven while the oven was being used to cook other dishes.

I'm also a firm believer of adjusting things to my taste and there is no reason why I shouldn't and still call it the same dish. I might like garlic (and I do) so tend to put it in most things, many of which others wouldn't. If I add garlic to a beef burger because I like garlic and then maybe some chilli and a little cumin seed, its still a burger... If I then decide to oven bake the patties to keep the fat level down, its still a burger... I put it on a pitta bread rather than a bun, its still a burger...

I do understand that doing too much to a recipe at some point creates another dish, but again I also understand that one book, one person, one area do not make the entire truth. I know that my ways for making things are good and work well, suite my pallete and are enjoyed by my family, friends and people who have given me feed back on my recipes, but I'm sure there will be people spinning in fury about the way I've done something and saying its not right...

If you look at any dish from anywhere around the World in great depth, see how its made by this person, that person, in that village, over the boarder, in another country, by people from its place of origin living elsewhere, by restaurants, caf?s and people like myself who are also making it then you will find a massive variation from what you might have considered to be its roots. To argue that any of the others are not right and that any one single version is the correct one is a little mislead.

There is however a point where you might be making something and your changes to it have moved it on to something else. Suppose you are making something like a 'lentil curry' and add a lot of stock, tomato and cream, you are now probably looking at a lentil soup or maybe a tomato soup with lentils... So I can see the point Lapis is making correctly, if a little too rigidly...

Steve

In majority of the restaurants in India they serve Indo-chinese version as proper chinese is not so popular there. Here in UK also they proudly announce in their menu their food as indo-chinese, they tweaked the dish to suit their taste which i admit is very popular (and tasty).

I agree with Mamta about rudeness, and with Steve about degree of modifying recipes. Recipes are not like the instructions for assembling a piece of furniture: cooking practices are cultural practices, and cultural practices are subject to regional variability, and evolution over time.

Necessity may indeed may be, at times, the mother of invention, but there is surely also spontaneous inventivesness in cookery: it's not all science, but partly art, which involves taste, and that varies from one person to another.

my way at looking at good recipes is that they are prescriptive. Follow them (to the letter) and you will be rewarded with a wonderful dish, deviate, and you may end up with something less wonderful.

Recipes, good ones, have been tested and adjusted over time, until the cook/chef can see no way of improving them. Very slight deviations may make a world of difference, or may not be noticed, but the warning is there.

I would argue that cooking is a science, but dealing with the variables (ingredients, cooking technique, timings, etc.) depends mostly on experience, but which is often called 'art'.

Cooking is like a blue print for making furniture! Follow the instructions to the letter, and you end up with a Chippendale chair, deviate and you could end up with a milking stool!

I suppose it might come down to our own aspirations. I like to aim for the sun, sometimes I end up at the moon. Others may aim just for the moon, and miss completely!

if one chef comes up with their ultimate can't be tweaked recipe, thats fine for them, but doesn't mean its right for anyone else ! Nor does it mean that anyone doesn't have more skill or different tastes to adjust a recipe to suit them and it still be the same thing.

Someone might like a plain mushroom soup with just this amount of cream, that amount of pepper, and if we are talking chefs probably a handful of salt.. they might say that is prefect... personally I'd be removing a good percentage of the salt, probably using a lot more pepper and even add a touch of garlic.. it would still be mushroom soup though.. and I wouldn't be missing anything :-)

On a similar line you could go somewhere and be given the "best..." around.. you might taste it and think this is devine, I must have the recipe... you try it and come up with the same fabulous dish.. its wonderful... you tell someone about the recipe and they say.. no its all wrong, my family is from 50miles from that village and they don't make it anything like that.. in fact they laugh at the "rubbish" that village makes... so now where do you go ?.. what you thought was the best and ultimate recipe, the defining glory is suddenly being dismissed...

Steve

I think you missed the point!

Cooking is about fresh ingredients, a knowledge of when u know by smell its perfectly cooked. If we followed recipes to the letter wouldnt life be boring hmm