Topic: Whole new take on precooked meat and the base sauce

[Mark J]

This is taken from the book '100 Best Balti Curries (Authentic dishes from the Baltihouses)', which by the way is very interesting book, I might revisit some of these recipes now I have discovered the secret of leaving a curry before eating it? ?. I think its out of print now but it regularly crops up on ebay now and then.

Anyway, this book uses the correct formula of first making up a base balti sauce that is used in almost all the recipes, it gives 2 variants everday and rolls royce (Id want the rolls royce everyday but thats another matter? ;D). These 2 base sauces dont differ greatly from what we know, only ingredient I see in them that arent in our base sauces are dried methi leaves, however they do give a 3rd way to produce the base sauce which is combining the pre cooking meat stage with the making of the sauce, they give 2 variants one for lamb and mutton, the other for chicken.

Here is the one for chicken:

Pre-cooking chicken and making Balti sauce

3lb chicken
3 onions, chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped
1 TBSP salt
2 inch fresh ginger, peeled and grated
6 large garlic cloves, crushed
2.5 TSP Balti spice mix (Just use bruce edwards restaurant masala, they arent too different)
1 TSP turmeric
4 cloves
2 inch cinnamon
1 black or 4 green cardamoms, broken open (dont know what this is about, black and green cardamoms are not in anyway interchangeable in my book!)
2 black peppercorns
1 TBSP fresh chopped coriander
2 TBSP veg oil

Lob everything except the coriander and oil into a pan, add 300ml water, bring to boil, cover and simmer for 30-35 minutes

The chicken should be ready at this point so remove

Add the coriander and oil and return to the boil, stir for 2 minutes

Fish out the cinnamon and cardamom and blend the mixture.

The recipe for lamb is a little different and involves more spices, oil and methi for some reason.


I havent tried this but I bet it produces a decent base as it is cooking with the meat, they talk about using not just chicken breast but portions and meat coming off thebone so this sounds like it will impart a similar flavour to Pete's chicken jelly.

[ghanna]

Hi Mark J
This is how they cook authentic Indian curry.(the above recipe ) but of course with a slight variation i.e frying the onion,garlic ,ginger, spices, tomato and then frying the chicken and adding the rest of the ingredients.
The only difference in this recipe is they remove the chicken after 30 minutes and then they  puree The rest of the  ingredients.
Instead of boiling the gravy ingredients separately and then boiling  the chicken separately ,they are doing It in one pot together .Very good idea.
So in basic it is boiled onion curry gravy with the chicken boiled in it with the rest of the ingredients.
Thanks
ghanna

[ghanna]

Hi , Mark J
You are very lucky to have this book, i tried  a lot to buy it but it is out of print.
I wonder if you can type more of the recipes, or is it illegal ?
Thanks
ghanna

[Mark J]

Here you go:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=11105&item=8300503969&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW


Or alternatively I see there are some going for ?70 on amazon  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/detail/offer-listing/-/1857932218/used/ref=sdp_usedb/202-2413053-2691028

[Mark J]

The diference being you now use this pureed sauce for any balti's, not just the one you have pre cooked the meat for.

[ghanna]

Thanks Mark J
ghanna