In this New Year's video Latif has his cousin prepare and old school (non vegetarian / vegan) base gravy, cook a saffron chicken biryani and then also use the gravy to make bhuna chicken. Well worth watching and may be the trick for those looking to recreate the curry of memories. Link provided to show his dads mixed powder as well.  The proportions are in the description. Nothing surprising there.

https://youtu.be/XHJg0JJY70g?si=3t9YjGQhCILpvfEP

https://youtu.be/mdzuPutmIPQ?si=_ILGeS3ZXzmCTttv

I'm about to commence day 3 of a 4 day cookathon for tomorrow nights requested curry banquet.  My daughter is bringing her Brazilian friend and his daughter over. 

I've already made a pot of Misty base gravy, and pre-cooked 1.5 kg of lamb rump, 1.5 kg of chicken thigh and 2 kg of chicken breast. I have 1.2 kg of tikka mixed thigh and breast already marinated using CT's recipe, which I'll cook over charcoals today. Some will be served as entrees and some in a dish or 2.

I've made the filling for Malabar chicken mini spring rolls (already sampled a few as testers) and I have 2 boxes of frozen onion bhajis.

Last thing yesterday was a special dish of Mughlai Gosht done in the pressure cooker using a whole 2 kg lamb leg cut into 2" thick chops by the butcher. It is rich and tasty, cooked in butter ghee and using cashew paste, fried onion paste, puree tomato, whole and powdered spices including nutmeg and mace.

I have 1kg of green banana prawns ready to go into the favourite Masala Shrimp and 600g of okra for the Bhindi Masala.  There will be the usual vegetable navratan and today I'll make up the naan dough. 

I haven't done a 10 dish banquet in quite a while and I'm enjoying it.

I've been mucking about with a few different Indian Egg (Anda) recipes, and this one jumped out of YouTube at me the other day.  I decided to give it a go this morning and I must say, that even though it's a bit of work for first thing in the morning, it is delicious.  I watched about a dozen video recipes and then just winged it.  I only cooked 2 eggs so I have half of the sauce in the fridge which will make tomorrow morning a quick easy breakfast.

Served with a Roti Paratha (frozen from Aldi). These are really good.

I did a forum site search for "Lababdar" before posting here, and there is a thread on Chicken Tikka Lababdar which I will now need to explore.  Very tasty gravy so I imagine it will be a pairing that works well.

PS: I would also highly recommend Bombay Eggs.  I didn't get to photograph this dish, but I'll be cooking it again.

WTF is she on?

Well, it's been an interesting few weeks. 2 months ago my wife booked us tickets to The Mitchell Creek Rock and Blues Festival where we would camp for 3 nights and 4 days with her family (mother, brothers, sisters in law and a nephew). We would share the meal preparation and I volunteered curries.  This meant a couple of vegan dishes along with basic chicken and lamb.  So, I prepared and froze these in foil takeaway containers. Chicken and lamb curry, Bhindi Masala and Vegetable Navratan using vegan vegetable cream. I also cooked a large dahl and a Rajma. We cooked yellow spiced rice up there and I also took along some mild vegan samosa.  The curries were slow defrosted in an esky (no ice) over the 2 day trip. Yep! 2 days and 1050 km to get there.

Chicken, lamb and navratan all made with Bruce Edwards base and all curries survived the journey and were delicious.

We are currently on a short coastal break for a few days on the way back home from Queensland. Staying at South West Rocks NSW, which is where the historic Trial Bay Gaol was built out of local granite back in the 19th century.  Lovely place and yesterday we enjoyed some whale watching as the mother humpbacks are working their way south with us on their own way back to the Antarctic waters with their new babies.

What made the few weeks interesting is that I had some pre-trip jobs which needed to be done at home and required a fair bit or energy and lifting.  I had to rebuild fences to keep Mrs L's horses in while we were away.  However, 16 days out I became unwell. After 1 week I noticed I had no senses of taste or smell, so a quick RAT confirmed that I had caught Covid for the first time.  Each day was a battle to build fences and then lie down.  Only 3 days out, I told Donna that I didn't think I'd make it but 36 hours before departure I suddenly felt well enough to do the trip.

I'm glad I made it as it's been a great week away and I haven't really left home much for many years.  Although, I didn't enjoy tent camping as much as I used to in my surfing days.

I'm looking forward to getting home and back to a proper kitchen.  I really do have to revisit the Bhindi Masala as it was outrageously good and the clear favourite of everybody.

This is as good a description, with wonderful photographs, of the Australian Burger as you'd hope to find.  The Blogger, Sara, calls the full kit a burger with the lot instead of a works burger and lists the fried egg as the final extra. I would argue that it is the pineapple which is the last addition.  She also provides the option of Tomato Sauce (Aussie Ketchup) in the ingredient list, but like me she prefers Barbecue.  It simply has to be Barbecue Sauce.  My go-to preference is always the Burger w/ Bacon and Egg and BBQ Sauce.

https://bellyrumbles.com/almighty-aussie-burger-recipe/

Dinner tonight, I think.  I just need to decide on home-made or Gab's.

"Back in the 70's .... we used to sell hundreds a week." 

Here is a video of a supposed 1970's BIR Chicken Dansak uploaded to YT by Chef Din fairly recently. He does say that back in the day it used to be just sweet and sour unless the customer asked for it hot and he says that the chilli heat is a variable to taste, as I feel is always the case anyway.  After thoroughly enjoying the Dhansak recipe posted by Tempest63 recently, I've decided I'm going to give this a go.  I know a few people here express interest (and disappointment) in the dish, so perhaps this one will tick a few boxes.  I do like Chef Din's approach and the recipes of his I've made so far have been good.  I can't see why this would be different.

He does have 4 different Chicken Dansak videos, but this is the most recent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi36tUI60NM

As I'm hoping for a better grow season this year, I've just started by planting seeds for my SuperHots. I've put in over 200 so I hope I get some good germination rates.  They are Naga Viper, 7 Pod Yellow, Trinidad Moruga Scorpion, Purple Naga Jolokia and a hybrid from previous years which is the Purple Naga Jolokia but with white flowers instead of purple.  The fruit are still purple but hey aren't really quite as hot.  I don't particularly like the really hot ones, but they are popular with others.

Tomorrow I'll do my Thai Birdseyes. As these are just so good for all round use and they are a really hardy plant, I'll do a full tray of 144 seeds.  After that I'll do another tray of Indian varieties and then another of Mezcla Americana.  The Americana are mixed seed varieties but some of them are really tasty, and some grow really large pods, some are really long and curly.  Some of the Indian ones grew well last time around so I've got a good variety of seeds to play with.  Very interesting and a lot of fun to grow.

Unfortunately, my Carolina Reaper didn't fruit last year but it has survived the winter so I'm going to try pruning it, feeding it and hopefully it will kick on this year.

My nose is currently stinging a bit from touching my face after removing the seeds of the last 7 Pod Yellow which was still a ripe fruit.  I always forget to take care with the really hot ones.

Looking at the Desi Style Mix Powder ingredients is quite intriguing, assuming they are listed in descending order of amount.  The other possibility is that the 5 main ingredients (or some of them) are used in equal quantity. I have just reviewed the list of mixed powders and find none that have Garam Masala in large amount.  Most have only a small amount or none at all and usually Madras Curry Powder (or just curry powder) are higher up the list.  Given this ingredient list, in comparison with other widely used powders, I'd be inclined to go with the latter and first try the 5 main ingredients used in equal parts.

*   Turmeric Powder
*   Ground Coriander Powder
*   Garam Masala
*   Cumin Powder
*   Madras Curry Powder

My first attempt would be to make a small batch using a standard GM and Madras Curry Powder.  Following up on this I'll try to work out possible ratios for the GM and Curry powders made by CBA.  Give me a few minutes and I'll be back.

Garam Masala:
After a quick search around I found one formula for a Garam Masala that pretty closely resembles the ingredient list with a few clear (expected) omissions.  Dagar Phool (Stone Flower) is pretty rare, and you wouldn't really expect it. Some say it is a missing flavour from Restaurant dishes.  I'm not convinced having bought and used it.  Triphala, I'm not surprised, is missing and it seems to be more Ayurvedic than flavour.  No chilli but you could add as desired, no Caraway and no salt.  Listed as the last ingredient it is probably only trace anyway and not really required.  Salt to taste at any time in cooking process.  I guess it could have some preservative effect on the mixed masala.  Cumin powder is well out of proportion, so I've changed it to reflect the order of ingredients as listed.

Coriander,  2 TBSP
Black Pepper, 1 TBSP
Bay Leaf, 4-5
Cloves, 2 tsp
Cinnamon, 6-8 pieces (size unknown but I'd be going on ordered volume so say 2 tsp of ground)
Cumin, 2 tsp (formula I found says 5 TBSP making it the highest amount)
Black Cardamom, 2 pieces or 2 tsp ground
Chilli, not used
Dagar Phool, not used
Nutmeg, 2 tsp
Triphala, not used
Star Aniseeds (sic), 6 pieces ground
Long Pepper, 8 - 10 pieces
Ginger, 10 grams (2 tsp)
Caraway, not used
Javitri, 10 g
Salt not used.

So based on these amounts, 2 tsp of most everything added to the top listed coriander and pepper should get pretty close.

Or, you could modify and use Natco Garam Masala, which contains most listed ingredients including Stoneflower and Triphala.   

Curry Powder next but it'll be later on.

I may be a sceptic, but I find it extraordinary that the exact ingredient list, in order, is to be found on the Natco Madras Curry Powder.

https://shop.natcofoods.com/products/curry-powder

I can't buy it over here, so I'd be looking at proportions to recreate my own using the same ingredient list.

Sri Lankan / Thai / Indian??  I'm not sure, but it was good.  You could do this with just fish or just prawns.  This was inspired by the Sri Lankan Seafood Curry I ate at a restaurant last week (it was a very tiny serving and was still hungry afterwards).

I started here so credit where it's due.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt7cfod4uTU.  I had no Brindle Berry (never heard of it to be honest) so I substituted in Tamarind for sour notes.  I saw no reason why I couldn't add a bit of the MDB's base gravy I had left over in the fridge, so I did.  I've also been really enjoying my daughter's Thai yellow fish curry (usually barramundi) and I had some Thai Yellow Curry Paste so it went in as well.

Anyway, this is what I did.

I started in a 5 cm deep non-stick fry pan and then had to transfer to a cast iron enamelled casserole type dish. When I do it next time I'll go straight to the casserole.
Add to the pan:

1/2 small onion fine dice
2 green chilli chopped
1 large cinnamon stick
1/2 tsp fenugreek seed (crushed but the video uses whole)
Red Chilli powder to taste (I used 1/2 tsp Kashmiri)
1/2 tsp Turmeric
Salt to taste (I used about 1 level tsp)
1 chopped fresh tomato
1 TBSP of Tamarind puree / concentrate (could have gone 2 but the Lemon Juice to serve fixed this).
1 1/2 cups of water.

Bring all of this to a boil and then allow to simmer away, stirring occasionally for a while.

While this was going on I added about 1 cup of the base gravy. 

In a small fry pan I heated 1 TBSP vegetable oil and briefly fried 1 rounded TBSP of Thai yellow curry paste and then added it to the main pan. (This is where I realised, I need a bigger pot).

I then added 2 cups (500 ml) of thick coconut milk (made from powder and water as it was all I had).

After this had cooked for a while, probably 30 minutes, I added the fish which was about 500g of Spanish Mackerel I had in the freezer and cooked this until done, about 10 - 15 minutes.  Leave the fish in big pieces to prevent them breaking up and be gentle.  I then turned it off and allowed it to sit for about 30 minutes while I prepared Coconut Rice.
(Recipetin Eats https://www.recipetineats.com/fluffy-coconut-rice/ but it didn't take 40 minutes in the oven.  More like 20 so keep an eye on it.)

Just prior to serving I turned the heat back up and once hot again, I added the other seafood. Raw prawns, shelled NZ mussels and a few pieces of thinly sliced calamari (squid rings). I cooked this for a few minutes until the prawns were done.  The additional seafood was a Marinara mix from the shop with some additional shelled prawn meat.  The smaller pieces of fish in the marinara mix broke up but that doesn't matter.

The sauce was bit thin, so I mixed 2 TBSP of Corn Flour (starch) in 1/3 cup of cold water and added this in while stirring very gently to avoid breaking up the fish.

Served with the cocounut rice and steamed asian vegetables, this was every bit as good as the restaurant dish I was served last week (better in my opinion, and I had a much bigger serve  ).  A squeeze of fresh lemon juice just sets it right off. Delicious! It served 4 and there are leftovers.  I have some live NZ green lipped mussels, in the shell, in the fridge that I didn't use.  I'll be adding them in tonight when I re-heat it.

7/10. I have to rate it fairly well as it was good, but I can't go too high as I believe there is room for improvement.  It's either that or I don't know what all the fuss is about. I imagine it is the former, since there is obviously quite a lot to learn and involved in making really good slow cooked / smoked brisket, and there are a lot of very biased opinions about what to do and not to do.  Do this. Don't do this. Do that. Don't do that.

Robbo, I'd be really grateful of your wife's recipe and tips, but here is what I ended up doing after much research.  It worked pretty well for a first attempt, and I made very detailed notes as I went so, I now have a baseline to work from next time.

I went for a "mixed" rub by making a batch of copycat Lawry's seasoning salt, which I applied over the top of 16 mesh black pepper and ground sea salt.  I used a binder / slather of American yellow mustard on the fat cap side only.  The brisket sat on the bench coming to room temperature (mild dry brine) for only about 1 hour.  On the rub I would comment that it was a bit too peppery.  By comparison to the videos I've seen, I didn't use too much so I can only assume that Texas smoked brisket is peppery.  I'll use less next time.

The cook.  I was later starting the fire than I wanted to be by about 3 hours and as it turned out, I needed the extra time.  I ended up finishing the cook in the propane BBQ with the lid down as I couldn't get the smoker temp high enough.  This is apparently ok with some people who finish them in an oven but frowned upon by traditionalists.  Oh well, it worked for me so I'm good with it.  The biggest time issue was that I did well and truly encounter "the stall" and it lasted for just over 2 hours.  All up it took exactly 8 hours to cook from room temperature to the target of 203' F. As it was later than anticipated I was unfortunately only able to give it a short rest.  This is apparently not desirable, but I don't think it did too much damage.

By all accounts this was a very small brisket being a yearling piece of only 2 kg or 4.4 lb.  At a cook time of 1.5 to 2 hours per pound it was about right to take 8 hours. It didn't have enough fat as I foolishly chose one that didn't.  This is wrong and I've learnt that lesson.

I used an ACV / Apple Juice / beer spritz every 45 minutes after the first 45 and wrapped in tallowed and spritzed peach butchers' paper as soon as the meat broke out of the stall.  You can wrap it when the stall starts and push through it faster (the Texas crutch method) but I chose to let it go by itself.

For smoke I used only 2 fairly small pieces of Pecan and 1 small piece of Cherry wood.  This was adequate and there was plenty of smoke flavour, or possibly even too much for the small cut of meat.  It carries a bit of bitterness in aftertaste.  I used the water tray to control temperature and humidity.  The problem with this is that you simply cannot raise the temperature above about 110' C until the water is all gone.  This is great for a long slow controlled cook though.

Anyway, when it was carved it was juicy inside, displayed a clear 1/4" pink smoke ring and had a nice dark bark.  Only one corner went a little dry, but I covered this with foil halfway through, so it wasn't too bad.

Just about everything I did is either recommended or frowned upon, depending upon who you listen to, but it wasn't bad at all, and I look forward to the next one.  The bonus is that I have the bigger model smoker and I was able to do a chicken in it at the same time.  I also finished this in the propane BBQ to crisp up the skin.

In this video Chef Din demonstrates his "multi-purpose" paste.  Even though he says he prefers to us the Big P for convenience in his restaurants, he gives this so people who can't buy P have the ability to make their own.

Tandoori Paste is easy to buy but I always enjoy making things from scratch.  I may make some adjustments and different batches with one being more in line with the Kashmiri Ver I made 2 summers back from my own chillis.  They were really good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbwk2DfJjK0&t=189s

The Bengali cook has put up a video yesterday, informing that he is preparing to upload a set of videos for 1990's BIR recipes.  The base gravy, preparing the chicken etc. Could be interesting.

https://youtu.be/y-6W0eHgAPQ

These were marinated for 48 hours, cooked under the grill and served with Bombay Aloo and a fresh garden salad with Greek yogurt.  Needed nothing more.  The photo is the chops at the turn before a few extra minutes to finish them off.

The basis of the recipe is here but I made a few mods.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSPbgb9HYjM&list=WL&index=1.  I added a few things and grilled them instead of frying.

Most of what Robbo has photographed there is what I expect to see when I buy Cinnamon Sticks (or quills) here in Australia.
https://curry-recipes.co.uk/imagehost/#9339c69d77dae57e4802a77dfe582683.jpeg
There are a few pieces in the middle which are what I'd have thought could be Cassia Bark.  Of course I could be well wrong and spices are a bit hit and miss over here, however here is my logic.

See the first 5 photographs of the last bag of Cinnamon sticks I bought.  Indeed some of it is paper thin and then some is about 1 mm thick and some up to 1.5 or 2  mm thickness.  This is, as I expected, the inner bark of the tree.  There is no evidence of outer bark and it is of Genus Cinnamomum but actual Species unknown. Of course there are Cinnamomum Spp from different geographical locations and Ceylon Cinnamon (Cinnamomum Verum) is the variety known as "True Cinnamon".  What I have here is Indian Cinnamon Sticks, which could be Verum, but who knows.

The last 2 photographs are what I expect to see when I purchase Cassia Bark.  It is flatter, not curled up and clearly shows the outer surface of the actual outer bark, which should be of the Cinnamomum Cassia (or Chinese Cinnamon).  Unfortunately, I no longer have the bag but it read Cinnamon Flat.  As I said, my previous bag was clearly labelled Cassia Bark.

In the instance of these 2 spices I have, there is a distinctly different aroma, with the quills being much "sweeter and richer" than the flat bark which has very little smell at all really.  Of course these are both out of India so are probably a variety of Cinnamomum tree which is neither or either Verum or Cassia spp, or some other spp.

I once bought a bag of ground Chinese Cinnamon from a Chinese Grocer and it was awful stuff.  You would never use it to make Cinnamon sugar for cinnamon toast or cinnamon doughnuts.  I have ground up my Cinnamon quills to make cinnamon sugar and it is what I would call the right stuff, ie: not Cassia.

Pictures of the 2 Baltis I cooked for dinner last night using the non-base gravy method from Shababs Chef (Zaf Hussain) and near identical from Rishton Chef (Hussain Rashid).  Shababs uses Cumin where Rishton does not but I did.  I also included 1/2 tsp of ground fenugreek seed (because I like it).  Balti Chicken Jalfrezi and Balti Prawn Jalfrezi w/ Turmeric Rice and crinkle cut chips.

Prawn wheel was discounted to Au$4.97 for I think 27 prawns, which works out at about Au$0.18. That's about UK 11p.  At a pub meal 3 weeks ago I paid $12.00 for 3 prawns as an addition to a steak meal.

Yes folks!  That's right. 

Rather than continue to clutter mick's thread, let's discuss Balti in general here.  I don't expect to solve this but it will make for interesting discussion.

Balti is a word which apparently translates to bucket.  Balti is a dish.  Here is the conundrum.  The passion of Balti.  Do an internet search and you'll find plenty of things claiming to be Balti.  So supposedly it started in the 1970's in Birmingham, but there is a claim from Rishton's Chef Hussain that he's cooking one with a recipe and style handed down through the family since the 1930's. How can that be?

What exactly constitutes a real, proper, authentic Balti?

1) Geography
2) Ingredients
3) Cooking / serving utensil
4) Heat / flame
5) Spice blend
6) Some of the above
7) All of the above from 1 - 5.

Why?
1) Balti comes from Birmingham. End of story. Like Champagne, Bourbon and Single Malt Scotch. Geographically restricted to an area. In this case Brum Balti or nothing.  You can't even cook one in Baltistan.
2) Consists only of fresh ingredients (but you can get a Tikka Balti if you want. Huh???)
3) Has to be cooked in a Birmingham Balti Co. Balti pan and served in it as well.
4) Cooked on high heat with the flame burning off some of the excess of oil.  We've seen it, commented on it and the result of not doing it will be an excessively oily dish. I've just experienced that but according to Chef Zaf Hussain, you can just spoon it off.
5) Uses a specific set of Balti spices (unless you put something else in)
6) If you skip one or 3 of these it could potentially still be a Balti, maybe.
7) To be a proper Balti it must tick all of these boxes from 1 - 5.  Any deviation and it's not a proper BB.

I can go and buy a jar of Balti paste, or make my own from a recipe as I've done.  I can cook a dish from that following instructions, recipes or based on previous experience.  Have I cooked a Balti or not?  I can follow MDB's Chicken Balti (Al Frash) recipe or the Rishton Chicken Balti, or now Shababs Chicken Balti (ala Misty Ricardo).  All 3 from Birmingham Balti restaurants. All purportedly Chicken Balti.  It should be the same dish, right??  However, a quick look at the ingredients and cooking (I've only done 1 so far) shows that they are completely different.

What do you think?

This will take 2 posts as it's 12 photos.  Start to finish with a photo at each stage plus a closeup of the finished dish.  This was a big improvement on my first attempt where I clearly under-cooked the gravy.
1) Onion in oil
2) Onion browning edges and garlic added (in middle)
3) Chicken in with first gravy
4) Reduction # 1
5) Tomato in
6) Reduction # 2

BBC reporting on Sydney weather for last 4 days.  The thing is it hasn't stopped yet as of Tuesday and we've just been told there is yet another East Coast Low developing for this weekend.