UKC

Afternoon,

I had a smashing balti on Saturday night (which I'm just finishing off today for lunch) and after being suitably impressed by my culinary masterpiece decided to pick up some more curry sauce from the supermarket this morning.
There I was scanning the shelves for an exciting sauce option and came across one I've never ever heard of

"Phal"
"It is one of the hottest forms of curry regularly available, even hotter than the vindaloo, using a large number of ground standard chilli peppers, or a hotter type of chilli such as scotch bonnet or habanero. Typically, the dish is a tomato-based thick curry and includes ginger and optionally fennel seeds"

I can't wait to try this now . OK I don't often cook curry (very seldom) How come I've never heard of this ?

My question is just exactly how hot is this going to be ? I'm one of those sorts of people that loves the sensation of my face melting off like something from the final scenes of Indiana Jones and the raiders of the lost ark.

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

Designed purely for the "steamed English pillock market", the phall is only to be eaten in front of spectators and no expectation of anything approaching flavour to permeate past the heat. You might like it.

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

Sauces in jars never succeed in tasting as one imagines they should IMHO. They are nearly all water after all. Make your own to suit.

In reply to Chive Talkin\':
If you really want to perk your curries up a bit, get some of these babies in your mix.
http://chillipepperpete.com/dried-chillies-heat/dried-chillies-extreme-heat

I'm still working my way through my big bag of Naga Ghosts, gorgeous!

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

I was out for a curry in Swansea once. The ringleader ordered a phal on top of the rest of the order and insisted everyone had to have a spoonful.

I couldn't taste the rest of my curry after that and I wouldn't hurry to have another. I like a flavourful heat - not just heat for the sake of heat.

In reply to LastBoyScout:

Yep. Indian food is about subtle blending of different spices, which can survive quite a bit of heat, but only so much. If I need a proper blast of chilli, then it's Thai food all the way.

In reply to Lusk:




Thanks for the heads up on the website. I may have to order myself some .

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

Phal was always the student challenge of choice. I suffered horribly but still never managed to finish one from the local Birmingham curry house.

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

Ready made curry pastes are the excretions of satan, better make your own! I have a separate box in my kitchen that contains about twenty or thirty Indian spices that I will roast, grind or mix in as they are. Knocking up a curry paste still will not take more than, say 15 or 20 minutes. Any leftover marinade can easily be frozen, so you can halve that preparation time for the average. I can also make the sauces as hot as I (or my guests) like. The taste of supermarket pastes just does not compare! If you want to give it a try I posted a recipe for an easy Balti paste on here a while ago.

Same goes by the way for Jamaican jerk marinade, Louisiana style BBQ sauce, and anything else, really.

CB

PS: I like my curries hot, too, to the point that I may end up drenched in sweat, but once you cannot taste the other spices anymore the point is missed!

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

Well after reading a few reviews on Amazon I'm beginning to think that this won't supply the heat and kick I'm hoping for.

The reviews range from slightly stronger than normal curry to just no heat at all.

Only one way to find out though.

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

The terms 'madras', 'vindaloo', 'phal' etc. as indications of chili heat are a purely English thing: they have no place in the fantastically-varied cuisine of India.

That said: if you want more heat, it's easy - just add more chilis.

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

Please "Do a Zimpara" and get this on youtube.

Ta

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

Phal? Pah! That's lightweight; you need a tarka, it's like a tikka but a little 'otter.

In reply to Rob Parsons:

A proper vindaloo is still a very hot Indian dish. It comes from the Portugese for wine and garlic "vinho" and "alho" a recipe they left on Goa, which the locals improved by whacking in spices and loads of the chillies the Portugese had introduced.

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:

I make my own curries from scratch. I used to follow recipes but now experiment a bit. When I followed Madhur Jaffrey I actually found them to be a little to mild and would often double the amount of spice, especially cumin and corriander seeds which are not hot at all. Her Madras recipe with fresh coconut is very mild. Spicy doesn't have to mean hot. For me too much chilli or cayenne just obliterates flavours.

I once had a Thai meal that someone had spent 8 hours preparing. It was one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life and took my mouth days to recover and grow some skin back!

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

you may also like the psycho juices at dr Burnorium's:
http://www.hotsauceemporium.co.uk/

P.S. there is nothing wrong with liking "heat for heat's sake", if that's your thing. Don't be talked down to by snobs who think it's only for the bravado factor. Not all dishes have a wonderfully subtle blend of delicate flavours in the first place; - the produce from my local curryhouse positively benefits from some additional 70%ghost pepper extract!

In reply to Just Another Dave:




Thank you. I won't let the curry snobs ruin my oral self harming addiction.



TWS

In reply to Just Another Dave:

PSYCHO JUICE 70% Scorpion Pepper



Awesome

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

I have a bottle of this stuff:

http://www.hotsauceemporium.co.uk/shop/capsaicin-extracts/96/mad-dog-38-spe...

It's amazing. It needs careful dosing, but once you've got your quantities dialled in for the level of heat you need vs a given volume of food, it allows a very predictable level. It's stupidly hot and really does only work as an ingredient, I've done the 'take a drop on your tongue' test and ok I survived but still

The stuff you linked above will also be ridiculous, be very careful when dosing condiment type hot sauces as it's a fine line between 'pleasant burn' and 'gibbering with pain' with these...

In reply to Chive Talkin\': Just have some baby wipes ready for later

youtube.com/watch?v=mIBTg7q9oNc&

In reply to Murderous_Crow:

https://store.davesgourmet.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=DAIN

I had a bottle of this stuff years ago. I use to love spicing up my tomato soups with this little beauty .
It supplied quite a heat with little or no fruitiness unfortunately . Still good stuff though.

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

From my understanding Phal is a way of preserving meat with spices. Layers of spices, including hot spices and meat are pressed into an unglazed earthenware pot. Weights are placed on this until the mix compacts and then more meat/spices are added. When the pot is full it is sealed. Originally it would then be buried, but new we have fridges that is not essential. Once the meat was required for consumption, the pot was broken away and you ended up with something that looked like a donor kebab. The meat could then be sliced off and then used in anyway you wanted, roast, tandoor style, casseroled etc. The hot spices help to preserve the meat. Just like Europeans used to cure hams by soaking them in salt and hanging them in the smoke from the fire to preserve them.

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

Ah yes, I've been through a few bottles of Dave's, before finding the Burnorium's much better selection. There are far fruitier fresh-tasting ones and also more extreme "pure heat" types. Worth getting a selection to experiment.

..not sampled the Mad Dog 38 though, I'll have to get some in. Cheers, Crow.

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

I once dropped a bottle of Dave's onto the counter, where it exploded and showered my arms with crumbs of glass and a couple of blobs of sauce. I cleaned the mess up and nipped into the shower about 5min later - was surprised to find a raised angry red rash beneath the globs of Insanity - this persisted for 3 days...

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

Gawd, imagine what that does to your insides!

In reply to Murderous_Crow:


Sounds unpleasant. What the hell does it do to peoples insides ?
Good story.
Not sure if it means I should like or dislike.

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

It's the following day when the stuff "reappears" that you will truly wish you hadn't indulged.
Just warning you, been there and done that - only the once.

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

Phal is more a rite of passage than a meal.

Mind you, the passing isn't much fun either.

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

The jarred sauce is a disappointment compared to Phal from a proper restaurant ime

Still nice in its own right though