Topic: The Tilted Pan

[Kashmiri Bob]

The following is based on my observations of a Balti being made in Birmingham.  Not at a fancy Balti restaurant.  The place is quite unassuming and the exterior is not much to look at.  Inside, it's basically a cafe, with just 4 tables.  Not much else, except for a standard glass fronted chiller cabinet, which contains pre-cooked kebabs, pakoras, etc.  The pre-cooks for the baltis are also kept here.  Pakistani cooking.  An extensive Balti menu.  All the favourites and more.  Separate sections on the menu for non-balti curries and the Desi specials, e.g. Karahi.  I have been here several times and, usually, the balti dishes are, most definitely, top notch.  They do small and large sized baltis.

So I can see my balti being made in the back.  The usual iron grated hobs are about 12 feet from where I stand.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  Lots of  battered in aluminium frying pans stacked on shelves behind the ovens/hobs.  A large stock pot of base gravy (cold) on one of the back burners.  It's quite thin and seems to be darker in colour than the norm.  I can't see the ingredient/spice containers.  All of the cooking equipment is in a corner and the ingredients are just out of view from my standpoint.  Standard steel chef's spoons.  A smallish steel ladle for the gravy.

So far, in total, I have watched 7 baltis being made for me.  All for takeaway.  3 different chefs and they all do exactly the same thing, which is where things start to get interesting.  I have not seen anything like this before.  I am guessing it may be a type of bhooning.  I don't know for sure.  If anyone recognises the technique, or has any ideas, fire away. So what is different?  Well, on my first visits a seriously dented frying pan was used.  Pretty sure it had been fashioned so it sat on the hob at a peculiar angle, with the handle projecting out front, but oriented lower than it "should be".  So the pan is titled slightly (lower at the front)  At this point I assumed that this was being done so the contents of the pan pool here.  However, after my latest visit and trying to simulate this myself,  I am not so sure if this has any significance.  Perhaps something related to speeding up reduction; will have to think more about this. 

So, three baltis (no pun intended) ordered for my latest visit.  3 pans this time too.  Not overly bashed in.  Lined up on the burners side-by-side.  Again, titled pans.  All of the pan handles were angled slightly downwards at the front.  I imagined putting a sprit level across them all and it would be bang on plumb.  The chef has somehow wedged the pans into the grates.  They looked rock solid to me.  Going nowhere.  Indeed, after doing this, the next time the chef touched any of the pan handles was to take them off the burners, when each balti was ready.

After adding oil finely chopped garlic and onion was put in each pan.    Pre-cooked meat next and all the base gravy for the balti  (6 ladles for the 2 large baltis, I missed the number for a small (lamb) balti I had ordered). A single, very gentle stir for each pan.  We are about 3 minutes in now. Some ingredients pinched in occasionally.  Not many.  The pan prep time for these dishes was 20-25 mins.  During this time the chef (same as the other chefs did) but his spoon into each balti 3-4 times.  Each time he would lift (not stir) the sauce, and put it back again, close to where it was in the first place.  So carefully.  It looked almost in slow motion.  No rush whatsoever.  As calm as you like.  Just lifting it up by about 2 inches.  Moving the sauce around.  I can't over emphasise how carefully this was being done.  As plain as day he did not want to disturb the contents of the pan unduly and had no intention, whatsoever, of getting any sauce up the pan walls. I couldn't help thinking, blimey, this is new territory, for me anyway. No pyrotechnics either. Next thing they are all done, each pan clean (nothing sticking), straight into TA containers and bagged.  Got home over an hour later.  Still crazy hot (temperature wise) TA curry.  Still way too hot to eat. Dry-extra dry dishes.  In the past I have done deliveries for a Bangla TA.  Even with an insulated box a 1 hour plus delivery was inviting an "arrived cold" comment.

Any road, I have since tried this approach at home.  Great results for recent ultra-dry baltis.  Hot cardboard too!  So what's going on?  Bhooning, checking for catching on the bottom of the pan, both? Something else?

Rob

[curryhell]

Interesting observations Rob and indeed food for thought for those on the balti journey.

[Kashmiri Bob]

Yes, it's certainly a head scratcher.  Minimal "stirring" (to reduce heat loss) is mentioned in Misty's account/recipes of the Shababs balti.  However, watching his Balti chicken video there is an absolute whirlpool of stirring going on (by comparison)  It's catching too.  His balti does look beautiful though, right up to the very end of the video where, unfortunately, it appears to have gone wrong.

https://mistyricardo.com/balti-chicken-shababs/

I was thinking last night there was something else I noticed this time at The Tilted Pan.  It was subtle, but this chef sometimes appeared hesitant (with the spoon). I had put this down to having the best view so far this time around.  So the previous chefs probably did the same.  Could be that he was actually looking for something, and correcting himself.  I wonder if he was looking for hot spots.  For the really dry dishes I do get some catching on the bottom of my pan.  Not really thought about it too much.  It doesn't stick/burn ( I use a lot of oil).  Interesting that the chef's pans were clean as a whistle afterwards though.

To be honest, I am absolutely flying with the baltis at the moment.  It's all down to Mick's base.  Still, I wouldn't say no to a quick tutorial from the TP chefs.  Maybe, one day.

Rob