Hi all,
I have this book (pamphlet lol) in to be honest, I quite like it. I've tried most of the recipes and I am really pleased with them. I wouldn't go as far as to say they they replicate my local BIR but that may be down to the fact that this is a "Balti" cook book. I have asked the question on this site before as to what the differences are between, BIR & Balti, and the responses are varied. My conclusion to this question is that "Balti" food is a bit more spiced than BIR! Take the base sauce in this book, there are quite a few more ingredients required than the Kris Dhillon base. The KD base produces a quite medium consistancy, which is sweet to the taste, with a curryish flavour, whereby the Balti base, is thicker and quite "soapy" to the taste, which is how the chef describes it as it should be. On the other hand, the base meat/chicken in the balti book is beautiful and can be eaten on its own as a mildly spiced curry, whereby the base meat/chicken in the KD book, is quite bland. And lastly, the spice blend from the Balti book has a lot of different spices included, far more than most spice blends that I have come across. There are nine different herbs/spices in this blend although the main dishes only require 1 or 2 teaspoons of the blend.
Just, another point wiyth the KD books, the main recipes require no additional garlic, which I find really strange! I know some members of this site believe that the KD books are a step backwards and I am wondering if the final dishes are not upto BIR standards, as I have not tried one yet and only used the base!
Anyway, I think the Balti book is a good book but probably not worth a tenner!!
Ray