I started off the day intending to make JerryM's Balti Chicken, but then I discovered a sneaky wee packet of king prawns lurking in the freezer and the temptation was too much to resist! I love prawns!

So Balti King Prawn it was - I added Kashmiri chilli powder and extra fresh chillies to the dish as the base I was using - my take on Bengali Bob's suggestions - had absolutely no heat in it at all. I have no idea if this base resembles what Rob uses himself, but it is light and sweet and has a very appealing golden colour. Neither the kitchen lighting nor my photography skills do the colour any justice - in all it's golden glory, it's like having a potful of summer sunshine!



The curry itself was great, IMO. I couldn't really assess my first attempt at the dish because I also had a huge dollop of Mr. Naga-laden Chicken Tikka Karahi on my plate alongside the Balti. Totally different flavours. But this time, I paired it with plain, boiled basmati rice (heresy, I know!) and the flavours were delicious.





In the Three Baltis thread, Rob said "the delicate balti flavours dance and sparkle so much". I didn't really get it then, but I definitely get it now!

So it's the plain, old Balti Chicken for tonight - I'm looking forward to it already!

Looking good Mr. Naga

Nothing wrong with Plain Balti Chicken and boiled rice.

In my memory the original Balti was just one dish, Balti Chicken and Naan.
But it quickly changed to Balti everything (customer driven probably)

I found three Balti cookbooks in the loft (early nineties) most of the recipes
are just Traditional from scratch Karahi cooking, not using any Garabi, Balti base or otherwise, so not BIR derived.

Wish Rob could hurry up and crack this one ;D ;D
cheers Chewy

Quote from: chewytikka on November 23, 2013, 02:51 PM...I found three Balti cookbooks in the loft (early nineties) most of the recipes are just Traditional from scratch Karahi cooking, not using any Garabi, Balti base or otherwise, so not BIR derived.

Wish Rob could hurry up and crack this one ;D ;D
cheers Chewy

Aye, I've recently taken receipt of 2 balti books - Lynette Baxter's book and the Lowe/Davidson book - both for 1p+postage from Amazon and I'm still waiting for the BBC book to arrive.

I've only just trawled through the Baxter book, and it's fairly clear that many of the recipes are derived from traditional methods and reworked to suit the fast food industry. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it looks as if she's had a go at balti-ising just about everything! To my mind, most of the recipes don't look especially different from a normal curry.

Rob seems to be posted missing just now - maybe that man-flu has really laid him low. But if Rob can add anything to Jerry's work, then the resulting dish will definitely be a curry worth waiting for! Must be great having access to so many great restaurants and takeaways!

Anyway, no Balti Chicken for me tonight - the family is arriving for dinner, so it'll be my famous Chicken Stroganoff for us all and the Balti will just have to wait until tomorrow!

  Stunning dish there Naga.  I've got a  packet of prawns sitting in the freezer just waiting to be added to a  decent worthy curry dish    That pic has got my juices flowing and i'm really looking forward to my oven reheat of the chicken phall i  made earlier in the week.  I'm very happy with this dish and my naga phall with fresh nagas.  It really is impacting on the local TA's and BIR's profit margin  ;D I must drag out my rather large prawns and do the Viceroy tandoori King Prawn dish soon.  May have to do a tandoori only menu (but without the tandoor of course    ) with a little hot sauce on the side