Topic: Balti

[Kashmiri Bob]

Nice colour that Madras is livo, stands out in the white pot.  Perhaps this is a reason a lot of the fancy BIRs here (I guess everywhere) often serve in white porcelain.  It's too modern for me.  The last time I went for a proper sit-down curry my Vindaloo arrived in a white square pasta dish.  Most off-putting.  This was after the poppadoms, which were served pre-broken, into small pieces.  I nearly walked out.

The balti in your vid link is standard handi cooking all day long.  I basically lived on a similar recipe throughout the lock-downs.  Very good indeed and easy to do.  Gives me an idea.   Also planning to move the balti cooking onto chicken thighs and reserve the breast for tikka, and stuff.   It makes sense to me.  Better taste and you can still get fresh UK chicken thighs here for £2.25/kg, or less. 

Rob             

[livo]

The bowl is not what I'd call modern LB.  It's probably at least 20 years old and just what I grabbed from the cupboard as the double quantity dish wouldn't fit in my usual "Indian" serving bowls.

The dish was quite enjoyable but the conversion to BIR or Balti using gravy went a bit askew.  The problem being that I used triple concentrate Tomato Paste, which on top of the already tomato rich base gravy made for a very tomatoey dish.  I did it in a bit of a rush for something to eat.  When I did it last time as the side by side, I was more careful, and the dishes were barely discernibly different.  The concentration of tomato pastes and purees etc is something to watch out for.

[livo]

The YouTube search engine / algorithm is a strange thing.  You can search for something over and over, and with variations in how you word your search, and get served the same "popular" videos from the same "popular" channels, and often with nothing to do with the search criteria.  Then, out of the blue, you'll be shown / offered an exact match to the words you've searched for that has never been displayed to you previously.

Anyway, here are a few links to some videos that popped up for me this morning.

The first one by Videojug is a video of a restaurant chef, (she isn't dressed like one) Shahena Ali from the Maharaja in Benfleet, Essex.  Titled "How to make Chicken Balti", this video is the oldest I've seen on Youtube so far at 13 years being uploaded in 2009.  A point of interest here is the use of yogurt, which I've now noticed coming up quite a lot in these Chicken Balti videos, particularly those from India, but apparently not ever in Birmingham Balti.  No Balti Paste in this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz7Qg70xyYI&list=WL&index=3

The second is a lady named Niamh Shields who beat Misty Ricardo to the Shababs kitchen by about 5 years.  Again, it's the same Shababs Chicken Balti with chef Zaf Hussain.  Unfortunately, it is terribly edited and has large gaps, but it does show a considerable level of consistency to the recent videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-HxmACgdEs&list=WL&index=1

Lastly is a bit of light relief and clearly not a Birmingham or BIR Balti.  This one is in Hindi and is for Balti Gosht using mutton (I think he says baby goat).  This could be where the use of the bucket is taken a bit too literally.    

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGxwBSlamwM&list=WL&index=2

[livo]

I was going through an old "Curry Notebook" of mine, and I came across a handwritten recipe I'd scribbled down.  I have no recollection of where I found it, but it is for a "Simple Balti Chicken".  I must have cooked it, but I don't recall how I felt about it, so I guess I'll need to do it again.  While it isn't a proper BIR base gravy, it does have two parts, which is a gravy followed by making the curry.

For the Gravy:
Make a paste of 1/2 a large onion, 2-3 cloves of garlic, 1 TBSP ginger and 1 green chilli.
Heat 1TBSP of oil and add pinch of hing, 1/2 tsp onion seed, 1/2 tsp cumin seed and fry for 30 seconds to a minute.
Add the paste and cook for 3 - 5 minutes.
Add 1 tsp coriander powder, 1 tsp turmeric, 1/2 tsp ground fenugreek seed and chilli powder to taste.  Cook for 1 minute.
Add 1 TBSP tomato paste, 1 cup of tomato puree (passata) and 1 tsp of honey (or jaggery / sugar) with 100 ml of water.  Cook for 5 minutes.
Check and adjust spice level.

That's the gravy done.  I'd made a note of Salt??? so, I think I may have added some, but I guess you can adjust at the end.

For the Balti.
Chop the other half of the onion and 1/4 of a green capsicum.
Wedge 2 small tomatoes.
Cut 2 chicken breasts into chunks.
Heat 1 - 2 TBSP oil in a pan.
Add another pinch of hing, the chopped onion and capsicum and cook for 3 minutes.
Add the chicken and 1/4 tsp of salt and cook till chicken is nearly done.
Add the gravy and cook to reduce and finish the chicken.
When nearly done, add the tomatoes, 2 tsp of garam masala and 50 ml of stirred yogurt.

Simple Chicken Balti, done.   

Looking at this recipe now, there is one obvious thing missing, which I will definitely add when I do it again.  Fresh coriander.  I guess you could also put some green chilli in as well to add flavour and a bit of heat.  There is opportunity to add other flavours to this by including different spices in the gravy.  Ajwain, cinnamon / cassia, fennel, cardamom, etc.  I might even experiment with a blob of homemade Balti paste.

[Robbo141]

Looks like that covers all the bases (sic) Livo.
I’ll give that a bash, maybe Sunday. Tonight we’re having the family over but it’s Italian fare so zero input from me.

Robbo