Visited Birmingham's Chinese Quarter yesterday. First time for me. Wow! What a place. Lot's of eateries of course, with mouth-watering food aromas, wafting everywhere. I felt hungry straight away, even though I had not long since had my breakfast. A range of prices for the restaurants. Looked at a menu in the window of one of them that had lots of pictures. It was £138 (set meal for two). I think this was for the afternoon service. Included a scallop dish by the looks of it. Chicken feet too. Not sure what the main was. It looked really nice though. Was parked in a nearby multi-storey with the clock running, so decided to just get what I came here for.

Found these two sat side-by-side in a smaller than expected supermarket. Nice to see and somehow strangely reassuring.





Also got a bag of Chinese cinnamon and a packet of Rajah tandoori masala seasoning. Couldn't find any Lychee pulp, or a distillate. I have already acquired 1 kg Lychee puree from Amazon though. Occured to me later that the usual Asian supermarkets I go to probably also stock Lychee products. I just haven't had any reason to look for them until now. So they will be my next port of call. Will also get a bottle of Rooh Afza, which I have tried before, but want to have a look at again, for completeness.

Anyway, I am hoping for some success, or at least some progress. If not, I am going straight back on the powdered Unicorn horn road. The Adil's balti is an itch that just won't go away.

Rob

When I got the Lychees had no base gravy to try it out. Got lucky again though. Remembered I had some pre-cooked chicken thighs in the freezer. Pre-cooked in the same gravy planned for this balti. Figured it would do to start with. The cans are 41 % lychee; the rest is just water, sugar and citric acid. Wasn't sure what to expect on opening one. A bit worried that the lychees would be in a sugar heavy gloopy syrup, i.e a problem. Nope. Very thin and tasted nowhere near as sweet as I had imagined. Drained the liquid into a graduated pyrex jug. Blended the fruit in another jug. Got just under 300 ml in each jug, will check this. Should add this is the first time I have tasted lychee, knowingly anyway. First thought, game over. Made a small look-see balti. Pre-cooked chicken, about 100 ml pulp, a splash of the liquid, salt, 1 well rounded TSP of Rajah Tandoori masala powder. Eureka moment. The elusive Adil's balti, with the weird and wonderful florals, at last. Felt it needed more TM. Getting the balance right may take some time, unless I get lucky again. Then there's incorporating it in the base. I also look forward to adding one of Jerry's cumin heavy Adil's GMs.

To finish the look-see I added a little pulp and a tiny pinch of TM to some Thai sweet chilli sauce. Mixed in nicely. Adil's chilli dip, sorted.

I have since started incorporating the pulp and liquid into a new batch sample of the base. Not there yet. One thing though. When Jerry came to my place, way back, to get the sample of base gravy I got from Adil's he spotted one thing, immediately. That the onions weren't melted. They had; it was the fruit content that threw us. I will post some photos of the base later.

The Ade Edmondson Adil's video isn't on YouTube anymore. I bought the whole episode on Prime Video. Better resolution than I remember. Lot's of ingredients going in at the pan (bowl) stage. After my look-see effort I thought adding that lot is going to trash my balti. I tried it though. Yup, trashed. It wasn't that bad TBH, but the Adil's flavour signatures were lost. Also way too much chilli heat. So for the time being I'll use oil, g/g, TM, fresh green chilli (paste) and salt. So in effect we are going right back to Mick's incredible Al Frash base and balti. With no (or very few additions) at the pan stage. I think I did say then that you can add things to MDB MKI base if you want, but not to muck about with it too much. I am thinking this will also apply to the Adil's balti.