Received by Email on 21.01.2007 at 18:57

Hello Mamta,

I've just purchased some spices from Spices of India,and excellent they were too! On their website they advertise an 'oven tandoor' We have a fan assisted oven.

I would be interested in your views on the effectiveness of these pots.Of course as Spices of India support the site, I appreciate that to comment may be a breach of protocol.

Health and happiness to you and yours,

Dave

Hello David

I am glad that your spices were good. When they sent me sample box, all ingredients were good and I was hoping to get some feedback from people who use their Internet ordering service.

I have never owned a 'proper' tandoor, it is a waste of a lot of money that can be used in getting other useful gadgets and unless you have a large kitchen, storage is also a problem. After saying that, a proper tandoor will give better results I have no doubt, because conventional ovens never get as hot as tandoor. I get around this by preheating the oven on FULL for a while before I 'tandoor' cook things in it. As for the Tandoor in question, I can not gicve my views on it, simply because I have never used it myself. It will be wrong of me to comment under the circumstances :-).

I will post your query on my Forum, see what others think.

Mamta

I'd love a real tandoor but I make do with griddle pans, hot plates and my oven... never tried a real or substitute one.. sorry..

I'm sorry to say that, after having tried many substitutes, there is NOTHING like the real thing. I think every kitchen should be fitted with one, and I regularly dream about owning an authentic tandoor oven of my own!!!

Liza

I asked Atul Cochhar, the Michelin stared Chef from Benaras restaurant in London, following question on the BBC's Food message board today. " ...I would also like to know how good these clay tandoor pots are? As I am a LOT older than you, I have tried various gas top tandoors and electric, table top tandoors available in India. None of these are very satisfactory. In fact one electric, table top tandoor that a friend had bought in Cannaught Place in Delhi, was quite dangerous."

His reply, which I don't think I am allowed to quote here, was not to try to imitate Tandoors at home. Make sure that the marinades are right, and cook in a normal oven, and finish the grill after cooking.

Hope this is of help to those of you who are looking for a tandoor.

Mamta

I'm not going to suggest others try it but I've found starting chapaties in my griddle pan (on the hob) and as they start to blister take them out of the pan and move it, then briefly touch the chapati to the hob itself. This gives it that great char-grilled flavour without over drying....(you need hands like leather though...)

Steven

That's exactly how all Indians I've EVER watched making chapatis do it - they start them off on the hot, flat griddle pan and then finish them off for a short time on the direct flames turning them quickly upside down again and again until they blow up into balloon shapes and small dark brown burned patches appear. They quickly flatten when pushed down onto the pile of cooked ones!

Infact, just checked mum's recipe and it's included in the cooking instructions!

never noticed it ! (must learn to read everything not just first few lines... woops... lol )

Hello Steven

Most North Indians tend to 'fluff up' chapatties directly on gas. It used to be on charcoal, but not these days. People from Punjab tend to cook them entirely on griddle, coaxing them to balloon by gently pressing with a scrunched up kitchen towel. You can also fluff them up very quickly under a grill, if your grill is close by to you stove. Mine is at the other end of the kitchen! You turn them over twice on the griddle and then flip them over under a pre-heated grill, with blistered side down. It makes them balloon up fast and gives a better crisping, much faster, but you have to keep a close eye, otherwise they burn. If you have two people in the kitchen, this is the quickest way.

Mamta

Have you noticed that if we are left to do something long enough, repeating over and over we all end up doing roughly the same things!

I have a griddle pan which goes directly on to my oven hob (solid ring) and I start in the pan but whip it out of the way, grab the chapati in hand and touch it to the hob a couple of times.

Hi Steve

If you have a kitchen mat made of stainless steel wire, you know the one on which you rest your hot pans, you can place that over your electric hob and cook chapatties on top of it. You can also use the standard wire rack on which you cool your breads/cakes. This way, you will have a little space between the hob and chapatti and they will balloon up better and faster. I have done it many, many times when I am visiting friends/family who do not have gas cookers. Some microwave ovens give you one with it too, to enable you to cook things on a wire rack in two layers. That works well.

Necessity is the mother of invention as they say! When I went to Sweden for the first time in 1970's, I did not have a rolling pin. I used empty wine bottle to roll out my chapatties ;-)! We used to go there for a month every summer and lived in Hospital flats, where my husband worked to make some extra money for holidays etc.

Mamta

wine bottle rolling pins... now that does surprise me...I thought I was the only drunken chapati maker... lol

LOL! It wasn't me drinking, honest. My OH drank it and Kavey licked it clean. She was 1 year old!

Mamta

Ha haaa! Oh my. I started young then!

And the irony is, I can't STAND wine as an adult. The only exception is dessert wine which probably counts as a separate drink for most people!

I find wines are very very different and even the same sort can taste different depending on shipping, storage, temperature etc....

I like red wines but some can be like paint stripper, where others are like fruity cream (even as cheap as ?2.50 a bottle...)

AskCy

I promise I've tried very very many of all price ranges, styles and wine-producing countries and I just don't like any of them!

I thought this thread was interesting so I had a look at the Spices of India website. I'd just draw your attention to the fact that for the advertised one, it does say that it's for outside use. I would think it's ok to have one like that and use it outside. It sort of makes sense - and it works on charcoal/briquettes.

I asked the famous Indian Chef Atul Kocher from 'Benaras' on BBC food message boards about it recently. He was answering questions after appearing on BBC food programme on eSaturday. He said that there is no need for a tandoor, you should cook in a hot oven and then finish it off under a grill. This is what I have always done and it works quite well. So, I for one do not have any intention of cluttering up my home with another (large) kitchen gadget that I will hardly ever use :)!

Talking about Tandoors, I have memories of a tandoor from when I was 3-4 years old; We used to live in Punjab then. My mother was making roties in a tandoor one day. I cam along and picked up the hot rod she used to get them out of the tandoor. It was of course hot and I dropped it, straight on my foot. I still have a scar to prove it!!!

Mamta

Ouch thats one lesson you'll never forget!

Mum, I never knew that was how you got the scar on your foot - never heard that story before!

Hello all, I just started cooking rotis by flipping the half-cooked rotis directly on the gas until they are fully cooked....well..just wanted to know if this way of cooking rotis ie flipping them "directly" on gas without the use of 'tawwa' etc is hazardous to our health in anyway

Well Amena, I have been making chapatties like that ever since gas become available in India, and I am still here ;-)! Seriously, I have not heard of any problems with cooking directly on a flame.

Thanks Mamta. I earlier used to use a soft kitchen towel to puff up the chapaties on a tawwa then switched to cookin them directly on flame but was not sure of it being not harmful..

Anyway, thanks again for replyin to me :)

Her's a couple of links to diy outdoor tandoors

http://www.cpsusa.com/ebay/tandoorOven.htm

http://www.poptastic.com/tandoor.html

I keep toying with idea of building a big oven outside, maybe a pizza oven or even a tandoor, but then wounder if it would be worth the effort for the 1 week a year when I could use it !...

Steve

Steve

You could use an outside oven without having to eat outside - just bring the food back inside when it's done. And you wouldn't have to clean the cooker!

True but I would have to venture out in the rain to sort out firewood, light it, check on things, carry the food out, back in .. etc

Thanks

Steve

Too much work, if you ask me!

I've just been pointed to a website for a company that specialises in outdoor ovens of several types thats not too far from where I live !

None look like tandoor ovens but they are the sort of thing I'd consider building !

link to the site

(so not advertising as such I've not shown its name, so if you don't want to know, don't click)

speaking of tandoors ... i wish there could be small ones for homes .. cause i miss them when i make checken and paneer tikka's and Naan.

ovens just dont match the hot tandoors and their outcomes on the special recipes which reqire the touch of the Tandoor .

I think it would be fairly easy to do something similar in effect in the home but the problem is all the heat and smoke extraction that is needed ! With enough extraction you could be having an open charcoal grill inside the house but most homes don't really cater for that degree of extraction, which ids probably why there isn't a home market for tandoors in the UK Kitchen.

Steve

There is a web site called holiday truths which has a Goa section in it. If you look through the postings there is one where someone has built an outside Tandoori - there are photos and instructions of the whole build.

hi

i have one of madhur jaffery's books and she says she now finishes chipatis off in the microwave. i tried this and they really do puff up like balloons!

not very traditional though :-]

also, carie, there are over 80,000 posts on that goa section. could you be more specific as to where? quite interested in seeing that.

regards

kris

In regards to feedback - I was very happy with the internet service provided by Spices of India. I ordered some online and they arrived the following day. I think it was just under ?3 for delivery but it was worth it to me. Will definitely be using them again.

Seabird, that's good to know.

We only recommend suppliers and services and products we've personally tried...

Spices of India is an amazing website and their service is brilliant. I have used them many times.

Kris

If it was the Tandoor oven you were refering to among the 80,000 posts, then here's a self build photo diary built by a chap who goes by the username of Unclebuck http://www.flickr.com/photos/39497298@N08/.

....hope the link works

Terry

Terry, the link worked for me, I just tried it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/39497298@N08/