https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/may/31/the-culture-has-changed-end-of-the-boom-for-birminghams-balti-triangle

What's the definition of sad?

This maybe:

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Or is it just depressing.

With the pending demise of Windows 7 in January - well, the stoppage of security updates which amounts to the same thing - I've been dabbling in Linux recently with the intention of moving over permanently and avoiding Winbloat 10 and its Orwellian spying tactics (yes I'm aware they've already ported the spyware to Win7 and 8.1 as well).

So, anyway, I've tried about fifteen different distributions as virtual machines and a couple on real hardware and am really liking what I see. Currently settling on MX Linux Xfce and Linux Mint Cinnamon. There's a couple of things I have to sort out before I can jump ship permanently but I expect to have that done by January 2020. I don't really need Adobe or MS Office so no probs there which is what usually keeps people tied to Windows.

I put MX linux on an underpowered notebook I have which absolutely crawls under Win10 and it's as snappy as hell now! I genuinely thought that the Linux is faster than Windows idea was just sales pitch for Linux, but no, it really is faster and by some margin, especially on older and/or underpowered hardware.

Has anyone else considered moving to Linux or are you there already perhaps? I'd be interested to hear opinions pro or con.

I was trying to find something related to bunjarra and got sidetracked into looking at my first few posts on the forum. I see that the first one is on 11 May 2007 and refers to CA's CTM.

Now,
a) I'm sure the forum started before that date and I was in at the beginning and
b) CA whose CTM I referenced in that "first" post definitely was not around at the start.

So where have my early posts disappeared to? Are others affected too? Is there a rolling clear out of early posts ... that would be really sad if so?

Found this on another website. Strikes me as the way things really are now in the (Chinese) takeaway trade when you only make pennies in profit on each dish.

Can't post because won't let me copy and paste.

I was ambling around Aldi and spotted some very cheap lamb's legs (?3.75/kg). I cut the leg in half and put it in a pot to precook and after about half an hour removed the halves to debone and chunk it. Having done that I nibbled on some scraps and the flavour was detectibly lamby but also very subtle.

So I was wondering, am I just getting what I paid for, which appears to be very little lamb flavour, or is this the way all lamb is going? Maybe I should be buying mutton to get the real lamb flavour or just stop being a cheapskate with the lamb?

Any thoughts?

I picked up a bottle of Suree Sriracha chilli sauce in B&M today (?1.50 ish) because people have been mentioning it and I've been meaning to try it for years but just never got around to it. Well, what a disappointment! It's just a less garlicky version of Maggi garlic-chilli sauce.

The up-side is that I looooove Maggi GC sauce so the disappointment was that I should have saved my pennies and just bought the superior brand.

Using this in a curry though? Not done it and not sure I would like to. For me I think it'd be like using Mr Naga in a curry and as much as I adore that pickle I can't abide it in a curry.

If you're buying the paste anyway the balti dish is effectively free:

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/patak-s-tikka-masala-with-free-6-curry-serving-dish-stainless-steel-1-78-selected-2413190

Holy Fuck chilli sauce that is!  ;D

QuoteGevaux also sells it online, alongside four even hotter varieties: Holy Mother of God, Christ on a Bike, Judas is Scary Hot and ? most eye-watering of all ? For the Love of God.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/mar/13/mark-gevaux-king-of-ribs-and-hot-sauce

Far, far away if my experience is anything to go by.

Having to resort to buying online from theasiancookshop as part of a large order because I just can't source these locally any more. Anyway, does anyone know where I can buy online in small quantities without having to make up the order to a much bigger one to avoid a huge post and packing charge?

I just noticed haldi (pete, of old) is 60!

Haven't seen him post much recently but he's one of our longest standing forum members having been here from the beginning of the forum just like me. 

It occured to me to ask whether you think you'll have cracked this curry lark by the time you're 70 haldi?  ;D

Having convinced myself that korma is the Devil's work I had an inedible half-portion of Korma sauce left over. Not wanting to bin it I pondered how I could make it palatable to my taste.

Well Chasni isn't a dish I've tried at a BIR, probably because it's a Scottish dish by nature and hasn't, as far as I'm aware, made itself all that well known in BIRs South of the border, though I'm willing to be corrected. But its core ingredients certainly appealed to me, at least on paper and, so, I decided to give it a whirl.

So to my half portion of Korma sauce, which tasted quite coconutty, I added mint sauce, tomato puree (didn't want the extra sweetness of ketchup), lemon juice, mango chutney (sweet, but felt the flavour was needed) and chicken tikka.

Now, I wouldn't claim this is an exact BIR Chasni replica and , indeed, how would I know as I've never had one in a BIR, but goodness me it was a cracking curry. The cloying sweetness of the korma sauce and the added mango chutney was buried by the delicious tartness of the lemon juice and the vinegar in the mint sauce. The mint flavour wasn't at all dominant but you could tell it was there. And the tikka, which I don't find suits all curries, seemed a perfect fit here. The coconut flavour, which was easily discernable in the Korma sauce, was now totally muted.

Apparently the Chasni has now overtake the CTM in popularity in Scotland and I can see why if my ad-hoc effort is anything to go by. I'm intrigued now to taste the real thing.

So, I'm not sure if I produced a Chasni ? la BIR but what a delicious curry in itself and a definite keeper for me.

Having only had a Korma once in my BIR career, and that being decades ago, I thought it only fair to give a recipe a go to see if I was being unduly critical of it, given its unquestionable popularity in BIRs.

I had no recipe as it's the easiest curry in the world to make but included base sauce, sugar, coconut block, almond meal and cream. I deliberately held back on the sugar, making it sweet but not nauseatingly so as I taste tested while cooking. No pic as it just looks like every other generic Korma, i.e. like someone emptied the contents of their baby's nappy onto the rice.

Verdict - well, it started off bearable enough but after the third or fourth mouthful I was almost starting to heave. Despite deliberately curtailing the sugar content to well below that of a normal korma it was just too sickening for me, perhaps due to the added cream content.

So it's still a big, fat, no way would I ever eat this again for me. And, to add insult to injury, I had no almond meal but did have almonds so I ground a few in my favourite grinder which had a slight crack in the plastic cup and the damned almonds widened the crack and blew out a small piece of the plastic.

Korma killed my grinder! 

Unlike Patak's pastes I'm quite partial to Patak's pickles. Except I tried the mango chutney tonight and while it's not too bad its absolute foremost flavour is cumin, to the point of being overpowering.

I just wondered if anyone else uses it and thinks the same?

I bought a dozen beautiful, red scotch bonnet chillies from my corner shop today and knocked up a chilli sauce with them. Roasted them off until they were nice and brown alongside a few cloves of garlic. Then boiled them in distilled malt vinegar with sugar and salt for half an hour. Let it cool and blended to a smooth sauce.

Now while I was doing the boiling I mashed the peppers a few times with a fork, had a lick of the residue and thought "bloody hell that's potent!". So after the blending I cautiously tatsed a tiny amount and it was pretty good. It was definitely hot, burnt the lips a little but it felt like it had mellowed in the cooking compared to the tasting done while boiling and it had a good flavour.

But then, oh my God!

The chilli heat swept over my forehead and moved backward over my scalp followed by profuse sweating. The chilli heat rose and rose and rose in my mouth and particularly on the tongue. My lips were on fire - all of this building oh so gradually. I actually felt a litttle queasy and faint! 

It would appear that despite being a veteran of Phals, I've finally found my match. The humble scotch bonnet; slow acting but all the power of an atomic bomb, if atomic bombs could be rated in Scovilles!

Have I just turned excessively wimpy in my old age or does anyone else find these chillies have the same effect on them?

One thing's for sure, if you're looking for a slow build up of chilli heat in your curries this has to be the answer.

I don't know, whatever next?

http://groceries.iceland.co.uk/iceland-chocolate-chicken-curry-375g/p/56050



Actually, if you look at the contents you'll see that the chocolate forms one five thousandth of the total ingredients. Almost a case for trading standards.

While I hate most things Patak I do love their pickles, particularly the mango pickle which has a really excellent and quite unique vinegar flavour. Does anyone know what type of vinegar they use as I'd love to get a bottle for experimentation?

After waiting for my friend to bring me the few jars of Mr Naga she bought for me a few months ago it was with some trepidation that I decided to just dive in and eat a whole teaspoonful rather than just nibble at it!

Opinion - very nice flavour (easy to see how it will work wonders in a curry). Good, gradual build up of heat and almost instantly-sweating forehead and top of head. But where's the chilli heat?

I have to say I was expecting much more on the heat front from various reports but this is seriously puny stuff in that regard. I could easily eat the whole jar it's so nice and, apart perhaps from a bout of indigestion, wouldn't even blink at the heat level involved. Seriously miffed on that front.

So, am I some sort of numb mouthed he-man or does everyone experience the same puny heat effect?

I was brewing up a batch of pre-cooked lamb this afternoon and I wanted to add some lamb stock so I added a couple of Knorr lamb stock cubes (well cuboids really). Anyway, I'd never used these before so I tasted a bit and was supremely disappointed with the flavour. Mostly salty and tasting like a veg stock cube but not a hint, as far as I could discern, of lamb flavour.

Now I've used OXO cubes in the past and they have a definite lambiness to them but would you recommend any other more flavoursome, and perhaps natural, lamb 'stock' (other than actual boiled lamb bones)?

What's the cheapest source of nuts for curry making that you've found? I'm talking about cashews and almonds mainly but also, perhaps, pistachios. I balked at the price of the small packets in the supernarket when I looked the other day, but even in the asian shop the cashews were ?3.50 for what looked like 250g!