[hserus]

Originally Posted by Aroy

. Once fully dried you have charcoal that is easy to handle and light.

That’s a fun but very messy way to reuse small bits and pieces of unburnt charcoal

But in his case he used quite large pieces and didn’t ventilate properly so I guess if he breaks the unburnt piece up and stacks his fire properly he shouldn’t need more effort than that.

[procrj]

Anyone here tried the OPOS method of cooking food? My wife & I have been doing this over the last few years and has worked very well for us. Quick, clean method to cook some amazing dishes and works well for both veg & non veg.

Ramki the founder also has 2 restraunt chains in Chennai which use the OPOS method to cook food - Pizza Republic and Bhojan Express.

More details here:
http://www.thehindu.com/life-and-sty...le24021855.ece

YT Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Thesiramki

Disclaimer: Over the years, I have interacted with Ramki many times and know him well. I dont have any commercial interests with Ramki/OPOS.

[hserus]

Originally Posted by procrj

Anyone here tried the OPOS method of cooking food? My wife & I have been doing this over the last few years and has worked very well for us. Quick, clean method to cook some amazing dishes and works well for both veg & non veg.

This one pot cooking is a western trend with many recipes coming online.

On the other hand, people have been making Biryani, Mutton Curry, Avial etc in pressure cookers ever since Prestige make them popular in the Indian market.

What if anything is the difference here? Quite confused.

[procrj]

Originally Posted by hserus

This one pot cooking is a western trend with many recipes coming online.

Well the western pot works in very different way as compared to the Indian pressure cooker.

What if anything is the difference here? Quite confused.

The fundamental difference is the process of cooking it. Traditionally, we use the the pressure cooker to cook a lot of food by adding water to the food and letting it steam and cook. OPOS is based on the principle of pressure baking - minimum water, maximum heat for minimum time to enhance natural flavor and colors.

Example - can you make chicken biryani in 6 min? you can in OPOS, without compromising on flavor. This has been validated by many folks and it works.

https://youtu.be/jgkoJ7CF3TU

In fact if you read the above hindu article, towards the end it talks about Thahseen opening a OPOS only biryani outlet in Chennai. They have done enough blind taste tests and market comparisons and outcome has been very positive for the OPOS biryani.

I think they already have an outlet in the HCL office serving this biryani, so if you know someone working there, do try.

[Aroy]

I think that Hyderabadi Biryani is a OPOS dish. I have seen videos of large scale cooking for 400+ persons and the cooks just keep adding the ingredients one by one and then close the lid for final cooking.

[hserus]

Originally Posted by procrj

Example - can you make chicken biryani in 6 min? you can in OPOS, without compromising on flavor. This has been validated by many folks and it works.

I think they already have an outlet in the HCL office serving this biryani, so if you know someone working there, do try.

Thanks!

Its the moisture in the chicken I'm concerned with - might end up too dry with this method. Usual cook biryani in its own juices with steam (true dum biryani like in Hyderabad) takes hours to cook slowly over a wood fire, not six minutes.

Well, there's always a first time to try something.

[procrj]

Originally Posted by hserus

Its the moisture in the chicken I'm concerned with

I have tried chicken that is cooked this way and its moist and tender.

Well, there's always a first time to try something.

If you plan to do this, do go through primer & standardization videos before you jump in to cook something. Would suggest you try some of the simpler stuff and understand layering before you jump into Dum biryani.

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by Aroy

I think that Hyderabadi Biryani is a OPOS dish. I have seen videos of large scale cooking for 400+ persons and the cooks just keep adding the ingredients one by one and then close the lid for final cooking.

OP, yes, but not OS. Hyderabadi, or just about any other biryani, is never one shot. There are stages in cooking. OS means putting in everything at one time, not add one by one. If put together at one time and then cooked, it won't taste like conventional Biryani (no Maillard reaction involved).

Pulao is a better example, though it involves a brief period of frying at the start. That way there are innumerable dishes being cooked in India since time immemorial, which can be classified as OPOS (think about how Sambhar is made in rural areas, for example).

Technically (without interpreted extrapolation), OPOS is stewing or cooking with a cold start - put everything together in a cold pot, cover and then put on fire or oven. If you watch Peter Kuruvita on TV, he does it with many Sri Lankan dishes in clay pots.

In Europe (Italy, central and eastern Europe, Turkey etc.) there are many stews made this way - pork, wild boar, chicken, wild fowl, fish, lamb, ... There are many vegetable stews too, usually with beans of different kinds as the main ingredient. Ditto north African cooking - Morocco (tagine), Egypt (tagin), Algeria etc.

The only OPOS I have eaten in France is Cassoulet from western / southwestern France. Love it, though it is so heavy a meal that one can't work after eating it. It is made with white beans (haricots blanc), duck, goose, pork sausages, sometimes lamb etc. Don't miss it if you get a chance.

Originally Posted by procrj

I have tried chicken that is cooked this way and its moist and tender.

Almost all of us cook chicken moist and tender by conventional cooking methods. It is a matter of marination and timing.

Originally Posted by procrj

If you plan to do this, do go through primer & standardization videos before you jump in to cook something. Would suggest you try some of the simpler stuff and understand layering before you jump into Dum biryani.

Sorry, but perhaps you should refer to older posts by aroy and others in this thread. Most of us have been making biryani by Dum method for ages! None of us needed primers, standardization videos or training classes when we started. Cooking is an experience where all results including total charring (learning from mistakes) are acceptable.

[prateekm]

Originally Posted by Aroy

Tried this Hyderabadi Biryani a lot at home.

Part 1
Mutton pieces cut big (50-70g each) - 1kg
Curd - 1 cup
Mint (pudina), Coriander (Dhaniya) Leaves - 100g
Green Chillies - 50g
Nutmeg (Jaiphal) - 1 nut
Ginger 50g
Garlic 50g
Salt - to taste

...

I always taste the marinade. It should taste perfect on its own.

I tried this and failed miserably. I've previously cooked chicken biryani using a similar technique and that turned out well because of the low cooking time.

This time, I cooked it for ~2 hours and mutton was burnt. I could see steam escaping after 1 hour and no matter how much atta I applied to the edges, the steam would find a new escape route once the heat made the atta hard. I'll be trying this again next week with a thicker seal using the atta and adding more water before sealing it. Or am I missing something? The flame was set at low and a tawa was used to dissipate the heat.

[hserus]

Originally Posted by prateekm

This time, I cooked it for ~2 hours and mutton was burnt. I could see steam escaping after 1 hour and no matter how much atta I applied to the edges, the steam would find a new escape route once the heat made the atta hard. I'll be trying this again next week with a thicker seal using the atta and adding more water before sealing it. Or am I missing something? The flame was set at low and a tawa was used to dissipate the heat.

Try mixing a little oil into the atta. That should help. And don’t patch the atta in dry places, add a fresh layer around the sides of the lid after the first layer that is on the rim of the pot to stick the lid on top.

[vibbs]

Originally Posted by DerAlte

Sorry, but perhaps you should refer to older posts by aroy and others in this thread. Most of us have been making biryani by Dum method for ages! None of us needed primers, standardization videos or training classes when we started. Cooking is an experience where all results including total charring (learning from mistakes) are acceptable.

I guess he is talking about OPOS and not traditional Dum Biryani preparation.

Getting OPOS right is greatly dependent starndardisation and timing else you end up with either burnt food or blown up cookers!

[Aroy]

Originally Posted by prateekm

I tried this and failed miserably. I've previously cooked chicken biryani using a similar technique and that turned out well because of the low cooking time.

This time, I cooked it for ~2 hours and mutton was burnt. I could see steam escaping after 1 hour and no matter how much atta I applied to the edges, the steam would find a new escape route once the heat made the atta hard. I'll be trying this again next week with a thicker seal using the atta and adding more water before sealing it. Or am I missing something? The flame was set at low and a tawa was used to dissipate the heat.

The Dum method relies on low temperature and good seal, so no steam escapes. If you have too much heat and a perfect seal then the whole thing will become a pressure cooker. What I do is to start at full heat and when the steam starts escaping (there will always be at least one weak spot in the seal), reduce the heat till the steam stops or just trickles out. Then seal the spot with fresh atta.

If the heat is too much, mostly when a small batch is cooked, then the steam pressure will build up and break through any seal. I normally cook 3 or 4 kilos of mutton with 1.5 or 2 kg rice, so heat required is quite a lot.

If you are cooking less than a kilo of mutton, then the heat has to be really low. Use the smallest gas, with a small tawa, which will conduct less heat compared to a large tawa. For sealing the atta you need a vessel with flat rim so that the atta sits between the rim and the lid.


Atta on the lid


This is how it should be in normal case


In case the steam leak is persistent, then use a thicker layer of atta and put a large weight on the top of the lid

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by vibbs

I guess he is talking about OPOS and not traditional Dum Biryani preparation.

Getting OPOS right is greatly dependent starndardisation and timing else you end up with either burnt food or blown up cookers!

Traditional biryani is not OPOS. Pulao is. And no, my comment was about traditional biryani - a part of which Aroy has shown with pics - which is 95% OPOS (one still has to fry the onions and parboil the rice - separately).

Have I done "OPOS" cooking? Have forgotten how many times in the last 40 years or so, using a ceramic coated casserole or clay pots.


Ending up with "with either burnt food or blown up cookers" is a combination of ignorance of the requirements of cooking, and the inability to be present physically and mentally for the entire period of cooking. It is as much relevant to normal cooking as for OPOS. One can end up with a burnt dish once (even a bit of charring can lend a charming character to a dish). The second time one has to be wiser.

Blowing the thermal release or gasket of a pressure cooker is a sign of not knowing how pressure cookers work. Totally burning a dish is a sign of total ignorance, since the first signs of charring at the bottom one can easily smell in the air - well in time to take the dish off the heat, preventing a catastrophe.

While a good dish doesn't require standardization, one has to be able to relate to the ingredients and the process. How many people make a dish having tasted a good example for reference? Or can replicate exactly (that is the objective of standardization). Professional cooks rely on their experience with handling variation in inputs, not standardization.


Conversely, standardization is at a personal level, not across cooks. The chillies (fresh, dry whole or powder) one uses will never be standard in heat level in two consecutive purchases. Ditto for other ingredients. A good cook manages input variations well to achieve what for him / her is a standard taste.

For each step, and between steps, Timing is the essence of good cooking. Any cooking, even to make a good dal.

Cooking is not an exact science. It is possible to miss a couple of recipe ingredients or get the timing wrong, yet get an excellent dish out of the efforts. Quality of ingredients matter a lot, as much as knowing the ratios and how to handle each one of them.


OPOS is not for rank beginners at cooking. Since a cold-start OPOS doesn't give one a second chance, one has to know the ratios and the signs of dish completion well. Otherwise OPOS is a no-brainer, nor does it produce anything special in terms of flavor or texture. Slow stewing is an age-old method - OPOS is a nice fancy 'differentiator' term for the same thing.

One thing my grandfather's cook had taught me in childhood (being the incorrigibly inquisitive kid I was, I had wondered how in heavens does he know whether the Dum dish is cooked without looking or testing) was that a dish like Biryani is ready as soon as the dough seal has completely dried out and cracked, and no steam is leaking out any more. He used to put a heavy stone on the lid. And of course those were the days of cooking on wood or coal choolha!

I have made my share of boo-boo's with cooking biryani on gas, till I got a cast-iron tawa as the heat moderator. Didn't have a charcoal sigri for my clay tagine - that tawa on gas did a decent job.

[carboy]

What exactly are these McCain French Fries?

https://www.mccainindia.com/mccain-french-fries

Are they just cut potatoes? Or are the mashed potatoes shaped like cut potatoes? Have they been cooked once while mashing?

[hserus]

Originally Posted by carboy

What exactly are these McCain French Fries?

https://www.mccainindia.com/mccain-french-fries

Are they just cut potatoes? Or are the mashed potatoes shaped like cut potatoes? Have they been cooked once while mashing?

Boiled and freeze dried.