This seems to be the best place to start posting info relating to my journey to achieving something close my local BIR's interpretation of "chicken vindaloo". It certainly may not please the purists in terms of what the dish should be or what it should contain, but it's what i enjoy and am happy to eat day in day out. I can see the shaking of some heads already ;D but i don't really care what others think, as long as i achieve my aim. If i haven't raised the bar high enough for some people, I ain't gonna lose any sleep over it. My idea of the best BIR food will be different from many others on the site. It certainly does not extend to large plates with a meagre portion placed in the centre surrounded by carefully placed meaningless garnish
Give me a good full plate of tasty BIR food any day. I can easily forgive the lack of fancy superfluous presentation frills ;D
Anyway, the journey begins in true CR0 style, with the thread getting derailed almost immediately, this time by its starter, rather than somebody else :
Last Saturday, having been celebrating my birthday (for most of the week), my fellow revellers and I ended up in our usual BIR south of the river. To cut a long story short, i order my normal dish, yes you've guessed it, with fresh green chillis of course. Very enjoyable and totally different to that supplied by my normal local BIR. The meal was coming to a close when i made the fateful mistake of sampling a spoonful from a dish i'd heard of and was on my radar (CR0 influenced of course). A friend had ordered chicken rezalla and i thought i'd just see how it tasted.
Based on the raptures my tongue and mouth went into when the first spoonful of this hit the tastebuds, the vindaloo journey immediately stalled
I was blown away by a curry which had no heat, just loads of well balanced tandoori flavours combined with chicken tikka and mince meat in a thickish red tandoori sauce. I know some of you are thinking "he must be unwell" or "he's been away from the kitchen too long" or "he's lost it completely". Yes, I actually had found a dish, totally devoid of heat that rang my bells and pushed all my curry buttons ;D
Subsequently, I've read all there is to read on rezalla on here, from the 80's dish recounted by CT to a dish which could well include CTM ingredients and a few more. I have some ideas already about how to start to recreate it but am keen to hear of others experiences and descriptions of rezalla dishes they have eaten in BIR's. I will need to obtain a control sample of the dish against which I can compare my efforts which will require me to venture once again south of the river. This will obviously be a long term project with much more complexity than the vindaloo journey I feel. Hopefully I'll get close to both
All on topic contributions are now most welcome
Topic: My chicken vindaloo journey ???? (Read 35740 times)
