Cant remember the name of this stink hole, but i know for a fact its the only bir in the town. Im sure ive mentioned on here before about this place, however cannot find the post in this section.

Just dont go there, i mean it just dont! 

i could go on about whats bad about this place, tell you how their  food was this or that
but it is so bad it will make you sick.

It made me sick for 3 days and i basically shit myself before getting home.

Thats all you need to know. Try the chinese in town instead next to the tescos.

from the bbc

As UK curry houses struggle to staff their kitchens because of tougher immigration rules, the government wants them to accept graduates from new "Curry Colleges" training British workers in Asian cuisine.

Floyd Price, 18, places a naan bread in the Tandoor oven at Imli restaurant in central London. Although not quite as nimble-fingered with the traditional Indian bread as his colleagues, Floyd is certainly on his way.

And for the government, Floyd is something of a model for the future - a British chef in an Asian kitchen.

"When I first wanted to be a chef I wanted to do something like pastry. But once I got into an Indian kitchen I realised I preferred the food and methods of cooking," says apprentice chef Floyd.

"And I think it's about time that, considering everyone loves Indian food, we actually start to learn how to do it ourselves!"


rest of story here  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18039538





so i wonder if were gonna find the secret to the takeaway curries here?, maybe one of you guys can sign up for the course, that would be great.

noticed my usual place to buy spices online had small packs of this chilli powder in. so couldnt resist getting a pack to try.

now im wondering how much variation in heat there might be, as an example for a normal curry i like around half teaspoon- 1 level teaspoon or hot chilli powder, tsr variety.

anyone got any idea how much of this lethal stuff i try

hi all

canny now find the topic where all us chilli growers discussed and chatted about our spice growing. So thought i might revive it.

well this year i was lucky enough to overwinter 4 of my chilli plants with mixed results. my 2 jalopeno plants flourished and gave a great supply. these just sat on the kitchen windowsill and i would say were better than the first year. i took most at the green stage this year because i actually preffered them like this, whereas my first year growing it was nice to see jalapenos red and ripe, which id never seen in the shops before. 

my 2 scotch bonnet chillies were once again a disapointment, i actually think i chopped back far to much for overwintering as these are a slow growing and it was a poor summer these basically spent the whole growing season putting on leaf and height and only in august did they flower but it was far to late to start producing chillies.

ive binned them all now as i believe from reading that 2 years is realy the max for growing chillies, most do them as annuals.


Another thing i had a go at was growing coriander, and that was about the easiest and most prolific thing ive ever growing. heres how i did it.


1. got a large pot , one that sits outside could be anything from a bucket to a fancy clay pot.
2. filled with compost from a veg growing back at from garden shop
3. scattered in a pack of coriander seeds bought for 50p from morrisons
4. watered now and then if it was warm.


And the stuff grew and grew and grew. within a few weeks i had more than enough coriander to do me for all curry making all year. brilliant and saved a fortune. please try this next year.

next year im thinking of dorset nagas under lights and fenugreek

ok i know a phal is a bloody hot curry, i was wondering if this is the very hottest curry your likely to encounter that is sold as standard? are there other countries with even hotter curries?

Hello all. Been a bit well more than a bit busy lately and have lapsed coming to the forum often. However very much still making curries. Just now im working on a refit of a bir in manchester area. Kitchen is a bloody disgrace i gotta say, but im here on behalf of insurance company so all good.

Anyhow yesterday i saw a magazine at the door called chaat, and it had a splash on the front for a foolproof base gravy, well obviously i gotta tale a look. After reading it i found it to be a bit diffrent to our other base gravies listed here. So thought it worth posting. I havent tried it out yet as im 350 miles from home and im not sure they would be happy with me at the travelodge


6 tbsp mustard oil
4 large onions, diced
1 bulb of garlic crushed
4 thumb length pieces of ginger crushed
1 red chilli, roughly chopped
1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp ground coriander
1 tbsp tumeric
1 tbsp salt
1 carrot, diced
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 heaped tbsp brown sugar
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 litre water


method.

Heat the oil . Fry the onions on a low heat.stir frequently make sure they dont catch. Once the onions are softadd the garlic and ginger,stir for ten minutes, add the carrot, spices and salt and cook for 10 mins. Now add the remaining ingredients, the liquid should just cover the onions.

Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for an hour. Blend until smooth it should resemble a dark tomato soup and have a well rounded taste. This makes 1.5 litres enough for 3 courses for 4.

hello fellow curry makers.

the last couple of times when making a curry ive put a couple of teaspoons of the rajah tandoori masala powder in the pot with the chicken while pre-cooking. i think its a pretty decent way to give the chicken that tikka look and flavour. i know it aint a patch on the real thing but its a decent enough alternative if you dont want to go to the trouble of making and marinating tikka overnight or like me you fancy a curry on the spur of the moment.

someone else have a go please and tell me what you think.

So im thinking, after getting back from working away im going to give the 2011 madras a try. Im getting in the ear from an over fussy cleanliness wife.

Before it used to be the mess, all the pots and pans and tumeric stains in the new kitchen. So i took measures and made a decent attempted to at least put away my spice tubs and throw the onion peelings and tomato tins in the bin.

Well now its the smell, im like how the feck do i get rid of the smell, no-matter what you do your still going to have that bengal cooking lovley beautifull food of the gods smell lingering around for an evening. For me its positively a plus, but for her its just another reason i should stop cooking these curries.

so im thinking maybe i should just get rid of her, as there is no way im stopping my curry exploites.

curry or wife for me its a hard choice, im allready sort of un-officialy restricted to one curry need a week.

this just will not do

i had takeaway curries last week

One from stornoway balti house, its on bayhead across from the bus station if anyone is familiar with the island. Well at about 3am i started to get that awfull stomach pain, i spent the rest of the night on and off the toilet till the poison was flushed through the system.

couple of days later i thought i might have another curry, this time i was in perth driving towards coupar angus, there is a take away which ive gone to a few times in scone, just outside perth on the left on this road. so bought the curry, vindallo again my usual choice and drove about 5 miles down the road with it and found a suitable decent parking place to sit back and relax and eat. it tasted okish, not the best not the worst. later through the night after few hours in forfar, maybe midnight i was making my way to aberdeen via forfar when it hit me, i near shit myself i swear, i flew into stonehaven, into a pub i saw and barely saved myself. i bought a quick coke as i had used their toilet then headed back towards aberdeen, 10 mins later on same thing this time stopped in johnshaven and did likewise, was getting worried now as was getting late and worried about toilets being open. I reached aberdeen and was waiting for the premises to open and absolutely doubled up in the van i literaly pushed the guy out the way at 7am rushing to the toilet.

thats me finished for good with any bir takeaways.

this does not happen when i make my own or eat in a decent restaurant, it makes me think us all on here wanting to replicate bir curries that perhaps we would be bloody disgusted and shocked if we realy found out how they make them. It also makes me think that the reason they are able to keep the recipies a secret is sheer embarrasment to admit what shit they put in them.

i will never eat another bir curry again from a takeaway NEVER

was gonna revive last years snow topic, but thought i would do another one instead.

be nice though to see some more igloo's being made

anyway i was thinking it realy aint that long since it was last snowing here, it never left till realy late i think middle of march here in northern scotland and came sooner than usual. Im thinking 7 months without snow here. last snow time i never saw a blade of grass peek through from start of december till start of march i kid you not. please please dont let this be the start of it till march again.

It was coldest place in uk for past few days around here -15 c though in the town the van temp gauge was showing at worst -11 c.

i drove from ullapool to aberdeen, then back from aberdeen to fort william last week through the night and let just say it wasint a journey for the faint-hearted. while driving along i took a few pictures, mostly on the way back in the daytime, though couple on isle of lewis on saturday. I started in stornoway taking the ferry then went for a bloody awfull curry in ullapool ( they even forgot to put my veg pakora in the takeaway bag which i paid for, never found out till i stopped a bit outta town onwards to inverness. and no yellow sauce or bag of salad) it was totaly rubbish, so anyone heading to ullapool forget getting a curry there totaly rotten. and the ?15.20 i paid for a vindallo and nan they did give me was a bit steep just to get poisoned.

i did the same journey a week earlier and that time i stopped for a chinese in ullapool, this time i asked for a chicken curry with fried rice and when i stopped found they had giving me a chicken fried rice.



saturday morning in tolsta isle of lewis



in stornoway on saturday daytime


will post load more once i get the lead to get em off my phone, these i emailed to my wife.

wife and i have a bloody raging row on what a tablespoon is.

i went to the cupboard and took out what she calls a dessert spoon, to me it looks same size as any common household tablespoon. she insisted that a tablespoon is bigger than this dessert spoon hence i need to put in twice as much to make 1 tablespoon.


i think she is talking nonsense, she things i always have to be right in everything.


help me out here, right or wrong.

hello to all

i got a fresh order of spices and things from my reg online supplier, and as im sure we all do i got some new stuff to give it a whirl.

one item was from a company called top op

100g of ginger whole, blanched. seemed like worth a try to me as i often dont have any fresh ginger and seemed a better alternative than powder.

trouble is i cant cut the stuff, it seems to have been blanched with skin on, so i cant even grate it. i then tried soaking in water for a while, still couldnt cut it.


is there some kinda secret to make this stuff useable and is it a decent fresh alternative.


or should i get a catapult and use on the neighbours cat.



regards

hello

ive got 2 chilli plants on the go, must be 8 weeks now since i planted from seed. They are coming along very slowly. ive repotted them ect.

Im real disapointed i never started more off, the chillies i have i dont even know what kind they are, once growing more i will post a few pics maybe someone can help me with identification.

Anyhow this is a begging letter realy. I was wondering if anyone has some spare plants they wouldnt mind posting me. I will gladly give you postage costs. Perhaps you grew too many and be a shame to dump them.

i have been taking pics of the ones i have and will post the pics in here from seeding's on when they get on further by the summer.


regards




ps: i showed the wife a few pics posted on here in another thread of they peter penis ones overwise known as chilly willies. She now is intrested in chillies too. lol

found this little gem. jamie tells the secret of making a curry base. with of course lentils, cinnamin and coconut milk.

tut tut


http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/curry-recipes/curry-base-sauce#commentsForm

hello to all, at home babysitting today. So was scanning the site looking for a new base and recipe for a madras. Im not disapointed in my efforts so far, far from it and seldom do i make a bad curry now.However, maybe im missing out on a chance to make a truly great curry.


So im thinking what would all here consider the best base and recipe combo on this site that they personaly get the best results from and which till they find anything better they use.

Maybe from this we could find a consensus of which base/curry combination is universally preffered by the majority. what ever gets the best shout is gonna be the one im trying next.

have a nice bank holiday all  ( shame about the rain)

for anyone that thought we couldnt grow chillies in the uk

http://www.dorsetnaga.com/


seems we grow the hottest chilli there is on the scoville scale.

these people sell these mail order too, if anyone fancies giving it a go.

i know i dont lol

hello all, been away a fair bit last few weeks with work so aint been here. So today i thought it was time to make another batch of base. This got me thinking that as all the base will be used for a madras then why not just create a easy one pot madras, i have not read much on here about trying this though there are recipies without using a base. however i noticed pretty much the same spices were used in the madras as the base ie CA's base recipe and madras.

So the idea was just to combine the spices for both in the one pot and make the curry, then all i need to do is fry a little garlic/ginger purree and add some pre-cooked chicken each time i fancied a madras. it also got me thinking perhaps the sole reason this is not done in a bir is because they want to create diffrent curries from the same base. as i just wish to make the same from this base i saw no reason not to just do this.

Also i wished to reduce the oil in the finished curry, being just a very healthy spiced veg soup the only bad thing in it for health and calories is the quantities of oil, so i thing doing it this way may help to reduce the calories.

the recipe i used is as follows

1/5th cup of oil
1.5 kg of cheap brown supermarket onions
2 cans of chopped tomatoes
2 medium carrots
7 heaped tsp of ca's spice mix
10 heaped tsp of kashmiri mirch chilli powder
0.5 tsp fenugreek powder
1 garlic bulb
1.5 heaped tsp ground ginger
2 heaped tsp ground coriander
4 empty tomato cans full of water
1 heaped tsp cummin seeds
1 small bunch of coriander stalks
1 tsp salt


chop the onions roughly into about 8/10 pieces, add oil and onions to pot and cook on low heat for 20 mins till softened and browning

Add every thing else to the pot, cook for 40 mins on medium heat then blend the lot, i used a hand blender.

cook further 30 mins and your done.


I have taking some pics of what i did, though they show very little of intrest i can post if requested. The final dish was quite red and on the high side of madras heat so of course add the chilli to taste. i think there is enough for 12 decent sized curries from the finished article. The curry does seem to be lacking some oil, but this is my personal prefrence, this can just be made up at the cooking stage as desired anyway.

regards.

hi, took a full picture set of me making a bhuna which then i turned half into a rogan josh.
i never use pre-made spice mixes because it takes the fun and learning outta making a curry, but on this occasion i had a jar of mr huds international curry paste which i purchased just to try but mainly i needed to buy something else to make the purchases up for the free delivery deal. So this has been sitting in the cupboard for a few months so thought i would use it up. its realy quite good but no better than many spice mixes of your own you can make here.

frying garlic, ginger and a bay leaf



adding mr huds 3 teaspoons




cooking for a minute



in with tomato and pepper ( any pepper will do i just had some yellow lying around)




3 ladles of base sauce and some 2 birdseye green chillies chopped i also added some methi powder about 1/4 teaspoon.




gave it couple of mins



added pre-cooked chicken i pre-cooked the chicken for about 6 mins adding a little tumeric and curry powder.



just about there after another 5 mins, added some fresh coriander and let it reduce a little, the oil is rising to the top.



took half out the wok and into the balti dish, now onto the rogan josh.

added 1 tsp chilli powder, 1 teaspoon of mr huds, 1 ladle passata, half a finely chopped onion, fried in oil then added to the wok.



cooked on high heat for a few mins letting in reduce, added a couple of bits of tomato as well.



another couple of mins later just about there added some fresh coriander.



all ready in the balti dish




all done now with pilau rice, thanks 976bar for your tip the rice came out perfect.




close up


and the final pic (took ages to resize and upload all this !!)





the important bit, did it taste good, yeah it did

had a crack at a vegetarian dish last night, so thought might make a jalfrezi. The thing is i was kinda not paying much attention and forgot to add any chilli lol.

also will add using mushrooms, onion, peppers ect caused a lot of water in the dish. I had to thicken a bit with corn flour, could have used passata or even more spice, if i had remembered to add some chilli it might have helped!!!

anyway was very bland, being i used the be base which i made without the chilli added was just a mild mush.

runny curry slop


after attempted save with corn flour, at this point looked reasonable




final pic before starting to eat and finding out it was crap.




i think the lesson here is to have a little taste before you serve.Also not sure about using mushrooms, think a potato curry might be better.




best wishes

its been years since ive seen such bad snow and i live in highlands and islands. i work away in isle of lewis and live in fort william, bottom of ben nevis.

The ground has had permanent snow and ice for a month now.

ive seen deeper snow but never such a prolonged period of freezing cold, heck its been basically -10 to -14 for weeks at night. Its snowing heavy just now again

hows everyone else fairing in there part of the country the now.


ps> last night i never had a drink ( prob only scotsman)


happy new year