Howdy folks

I live in the north west and fancy a trip to curry mile, where I've somehow never been. Any recommendations?

Stopping in Lancaster tomorrow night and wouldn't mind paying a visit to a decent curry house. Any recommendations?

I'm going to be in Bournemouth most of next week on business, can anyone recommend a good BIR there for me to check out?

Just knocked up some Onion Bhaji's, using CA's recipe as a base, though I soon found out I didn't have a few of the ingredients in, and didn't fancy a few others as I was trying to replicate my local TA (which servers the best bhaji's in the world!). Note, I only made 4 golf ball sized bhaji's but the recipe should scale up fine

Recipe
Just made some of these, I used what I had in so it was the below recipe;

4 Small onions (very small) sliced finely
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dried methi leaves
1/4 tsp chilli powder
1/4 tsp tumeric powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp fennel seeds
1/4 tsp cumin powder
1/4 tsp amchoor
Enough Gram flour to cover everything well
Very small amount of water

Basically stick everything in a bowl, cover with the flour (mix in to make sure there's enough), add tiny bits of water at a time mixing in by hand. You want a stiff batter, something that can be formed into balls by hand.

Form into balls

Fry in deep fryer at 160 degrees for about 5 minutes, turning occasionally.

Here are some (blurry iphone) pics of my results;

http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/2010/img0055kht.jpg
http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/7866/img0056y.jpg

I must say I thought they were excellent, though would leave out the chilli powder next time as I find it out of place in bhaji's. The cooking method and texture was just right, identical to my local TA, the flavour was also excellent, not far away at all!

Here is an extremely quick (60 second) recipe for you guys to try out, I'd love to know what like-minded people think of it. Exact amounts are difficult to quantify, as I've been making this on auto pilot for years, but I'll knock some up over the next few days and add a picture of my results for comparison.

Ingredients

1x Medium Onion
1-2 tsp Schwartz Chilli Powder
2-3 tsp Lemon Juice (Jif is fine)

Method

• Very finely dice the onion and place in a small tupperware (those small lock'n'lock tubs are perfect)
  
• Add 1 tsp of Chilli Powder
• Lid on and give it a good shake
• Add more chilli powder if it looks like it needs it (should be a fairly liberal covering)
• Add 2 tsp of Lemon Juice
• Lid on and another good shake
• It should be just moist with perhaps a little excess lemon/chilli mix collecting in the bottom.
• Add more Lemon if required


• Done!

Important Note

I use Schwartz Hot Chilli powder for this as it is the perfect blend of spices; Chilli Pepper, Cumin, Salt, Oregano, Garlic, Cayenne Pepper. If you attempt this with simply powdered chilli you will be bitterly disappointed! No reason you can't blend your own combination of the above though!

I can't believe I am just finding this site, after having worked on my own to recreate BIR style curries at home for years. To find a group of like-minded people sharing tips and recipes is exciting!

My main source of inspiration has been The Curry Secret, which I see mentioned around the forum. Like many others I find the base recipe to be a good start but the curries produced in the end are rather bland and disappointing, needing much adaptation.

I'm going to have a crack at several of the recipes here this weekend, and at some point in the near future I'll post my Kofta Dupiaza recipe for you to critique!

In the mean time, I'll add my extremely simple onion "salad/pickle" to the misc sundries bank, as I find it goes with everything from curry to sandwiches!

Edit: Extremely Simple Onion "Salad/Pickle" Link