I dunno,
You guys sure have dampened my spirit. I am sat here with a Kushi Base, ready to go. Kushi pre-Cooked Chicken, ready to go. Kushi Spice, ready to go and a family that I have hyped up to expect something special. Maybe once they have eaten it they will be "ready to go" too!!
I am in two minds whether to bin it and get one delivered tonight instead.
But then again I am not blaming anyone, it's just that my hopes were up on the arrival of this book and now I am not sure we have got that bit nearer to what we have already got. Perhaps the opposite.
I must agree with you Pete, there is already something about this base that say's "not quite right" but I can't see exactly what. On the face of it there is a resemblance to the Bruce Edwards base but that's about it.
The Kushi spice seems o.k. , a bit similar to Bruce's spice mix. The pre-cooked chicken's rather garlicky but otherwise bland. There is a better pre-cooked chicken in the Balti House video.
I am going to go ahead with it I think as then I can say "tried it, bought the T-Shirt etc" then put the book to bed!
My nearest BIR Pete is about a mile away. In fact we have 6 about this distance even though we are a fairly small village. Most of these are very good but the best are in Keighley and Bradford.
My nearest town (Keighley) has some great Asian shops but none that sell Mace. One guy looked at me in bewilderment when I asked for it. "Mice". he said, "we don't have mice!".
Must have tought I was taking the P--s!
I am not that dedicated to trailing miles for a bag of spice. I happened to get an emergency call while I was working which co-incidentally took me to Bradford so by luck managed to get some Mace there. George was on standby ready to kindly send me some.
You could say I drove to Bradford at 90 m.p.h. in an emergency for a bag of spice!!!
The book "Bombay Brasserie Cookbook" uses Mace, mainly in it's Garam Masala. I will dig it out and see if there is anything of interest for everyone.
As for Blondie, I am wondering where HE ( yes it's a fella ) has gone myself. He did tell me in an e-mail he has had success with recipes from the book before it was published so it would be good to hear what one's he made and what results he had.
Regards
Ray