Hi Thomas,

Darthphall's base is a little out of date in my opinion. I would recommend you start with Bruce Edwards, SnS June 2008 or Saffron and go from there. Enjoy experimenting

Just to add to this discussion, this base is now my base of choice, however I don't add the tin of tomatoes nor do I make back up any water lost to evaporation (besides the 500ml added in the last stage). After the ~90 mins total cooking I probably end up with about 2l of sauce and find it works perfectly for the dishes I'm trying to produce.

Cheers SnS

976's images

Perhaps the amchoor having gone off 9 years ago is a reason why it is sour!

Personally, I feel the amchoor adds a little something, but really this recipe is quite flexible and it's mainly the amount of flour/water and the cooking method which give the results, spices can be played with a little to personal taste. I was just trying to recreate a local restaurant and feel this is a pretty close approximation.

Schwartz do allspice (jamaican pepper) which you can find in any supermarket. I often use it in rice and it has a lovely flavour. I'm not sure whether this recipe calls for the allspice berry, or the aromatic cinnamony spice mix that you can use in cakes/desserts?

Quote from: CurryOnRegardless on July 09, 2009, 05:41 PM

Quote from: qprbob on July 09, 2009, 11:58 AM
One of our local BIR's does Naga curries. They are extremely hot, but have a nice flavour to them.
They are supposed to be the hottest chili ever according to the Scoville scale. 923,000 SHU ( Scoville Heat Units.

I'll bet you they are using Scotch Bonnets not Naga chillies. There is one of the new fancy style BIRs round this way that does a so called Naga Curry but the taste is definitely SB, very distinctive and certainly hot but nowhere near as hot as a real Naga. Never seen any on sale anywhere, I think you would need to be a bit mental to attempt eating them TBH.

Regards
Cor

My local tesco had these tonight, and they really looked like dorset naga not generic habanero, I had to get some anyway. I can tell you I'm a real chilli head, I get fresh chillies from the south devon chilli farm, collect the super hot sauces (blairs, dave's gourmet etc) and these chillies were the real deal. I'm not stupid, I tried a bit about 4mm square, it was extremely hot, instant hiccups (uncomfortable ). If you see these in your local tesco, grab some

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!

I tend to do mine the same way as I'd make Italian meatballs, without using egg or breadcrumbs as I don't find them necessary. Rough recipe;

1lb Lamb Mince
2-4 Big cloves of garlic to taste (I like it garlicy )
Piece of ginger, finely chopped/grated (roughly 1.5cm cube)
Salt (again to taste)
1/2 small onion, very finely chopped
1/2 small green pepper, very finely chopped
2 green finger chillies, very finely chopped
Spices (the bit I'm unable to quantify, generally I add various quantities of cumin, coriander, turmeric, fenugreek, chilli powder, cardamon, garam masala)

The bit I feel makes a difference to the overall texture is to work the mixture by hand for a long time (several minutes) which really breaks down the grain of the meat and makes a smoother texture, also helps them stick together without needing egg. I then roll them into balls, lightly flour and fry to brown off before setting them aside to add into the curry later.

Yes mate, it's in the BIR style and is the product of many iterations, though It's not actually a dish I've had at a restaurant. The only problem is I've never written down the recipe before, it's made somewhat at random each time but doesn't change much really. I'll need to write it down next time I make it

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!