Due to apellation controlee we no longer have locally produced Port or Sherry in Australia - Port is now "Tawny" or "Ruby" and Sherry is called "Apera" which is a name dreamed up to suggest "Aperitif".

However serious Aussie wines are generally (but not always) called by grape variety, so you get Merlots, Pinot Noirs etc.

Oz is a wine drinker's paradise if you ever visit here, as it's still taxed more as a grocery item rather than grog. Currently drinking a "cleanskin" for the equivalent of two quid Pommy money which is simply labelled "Fruity White" and originates from "South Eastern Australia". Northern Slope?? 

It's very drinkable indeed and reminds me of the Moselles you used to get cheaply in Europe from the corner shop as a lunchtime quaffer.

That was four dollars. I bypassed the three dollar shelf to get to it. 

I don't use chicken breast any more, just chicken thigh fillets which turn out far more tender and are currently a similar price in AUS. They also seem to get more tender the longer you cook them, as opposed to the breasts.

I find that precooking as in the Curry 2 Go Youtubes with marinating overnight in yogurt, spices and GGP then cooking the next day with whole spices, onion and some base gravy gives lovely spicy aromatic chicken pieces.

One of the main benefits I find is that you end up with a good batch of "stock" afterwards that goes well in a lot of other dishes. Especially when I use far more onion than the 1/2 suggested by Curry 2 Go, it's almost like a dopiaza onion sauce.

For example the other night I got home starving at 9pm and boiled up lentils till smooth, then just chucked in dry mix powder, Kashmiri Chilli, a ladle of base gravy (the "shortcut" one posted by Curry 2 go) and some leftover "stock" from precooked chicken with a fair amount of soft onion pieces in.

Didn't bother with the "tarka" thing as the gravies had plenty of oil in, and it turned out a ripper dal and I ate half a litre of it at least. As SWMBO complained later on in the wee small hours 


edit: and she will have revenge, I'm cooking her bacon bone and split pea soup for tonight as it's still winter here.  :

This is a common trend in my other hobby, home brewing. The fine ales and lagers that we worshipped and strove to recreate nowadays seem bland and disappointing compared to the flavour we remember from years ago.

Nowadays with all-grain amateur brewing almost universal in the craft and a supply of varieties of hops and yeasts we could only have dreamed about 10 years ago we can produce full flavoured beers to our liking.

Then when we taste an old "holy grail" such as Pilsner Urquell or Leffe, they are strangely unsatisfying. The malt and hops are the same, surely not every beer in the World has gone downhill - but our tastebuds have become re-tuned I think and it's possibly the same with curries.

I'm trying to get some ally pans myself, very hard to come across in Australia despite we mine most of the Bauxite 

According to this local adhttp://www.dealsdirect.com.au/p/26cm-aluminium-frying-pan/ (note they are sold out, bugga) it's to do with the heat conductivity -

I guess what they mean is that with say a normal non stick pan it probably gets very hot at the bottom or where it is contacting the heat source (gas or electric ring) so would tend to burn stuff there but not on the sides, whereas the ally would presumably conduct the heat very quickly all over the pan and cook more evenly.

Hence the likes of Julian leaving the onions to cook down for five or ten minutes while he does other things. Mine would be cremated by then or only fit for fairground hot dogs  ;D

Australian Indian Restaurants use different gravies for the different "families" of curries, so there will be a butter gravy, a nut gravy (cashews or almonds), a vindaloo gravy and a standard onion gravy.

Perhaps what Steve is also referring to is that Aussie restaurants nearly all have an all you can eat buffet night once or twice a week for $20 or more where they will have 8 or more curries set out in a bain marie with accompaniments, sweets, chappatis, bhajis, raitas, Naan pieces etc. You just serve yourself and when a bain marie section runs low they just top it up out the back and replace (or at one place I know they just bring out a ghee bucket full and pour that straight in  )

Edit: and the Vindaloo usually has a warning on it.  ;D

The Indian stalls in the Shopping Mall food courts are also set out like that. However for takeaway or table menu service on the non buffet nights they always seem take around 20 mins so I expect they are cooked individually.

Turned out great, but I resisted dressing it up with coconut cream OZ style and therefore find it, as a Madras to be a bit sharp and tomatoey to my taste, but very pleasant. Taking the rest to work tomorrow for din dins. 



Edit: no coriander, got home and found that the snails or some other wildlife had reduced my coriander plants to skeletons 

Had to give it a go  ;D: my base has turned out a bit more orangey than Julian's as I put some passata in, not having a tin of diced tomatoes handy. I marinated some chicken overnight and currently precooking it Julian's method, and I'll whip up a Madras tonight.



I'm not limited to AIR cooking as I made up a big batch of Chorley style dry mix and his Garam Masala some time ago.

One thing that does impress me is that I've clearly ended up with enough base for four or more single portions, and that's not including the chefs spoon I put in the chicken precooking pan.

So for a quick BIR style gravy that can be knocked up in 20 minutes then put away for a few curry nights (SWMBO doesn't like curry much except for the odd no-chili butter chicken) it seems like a great compromise with cooking up a massive pot of base. 

On another point, the liquid that I drain off the precooked chicken, can that be used ladle for ladle as "chicken stock" or would it be a bit spicy and possibly "over egg the pudding"?

Edit: another thing that you can probably see in the photo, I got a really nice oil "break" in the gravy which would have taken me a lot longer using the "trad" method.

It starts off very similar to Australian Indian Recipe procedure. There, the oil is "seasoned in the pan" with some whole spices such as cinnamon quills, cardmom, a couple of cloves etc. Then the onion mix is added and fried.

Where they diverge is that with AIR the mix is fried longer until caramelisation is under way, the GGP is added at that stage then all the tomato and all the spice mix and cooked thick, diluted a bit if it gets too thick and cooked till the oil glistens and the onions have well and truly disintegrated, thus no stick blending.

Then on assembling with the precooked chicken the idea is to dilute it to desired texture, as opposed to reducing a runny gravy. Also many Aussie restaurants add coconut milk powder to Madras to give more of a Southern Indian flavour rather than Northern / Punjabi.

Wouldn't mind seeing if I can get a couple of those spice packs to try. In the past I have done a hybrid method using blended raw onions, Garlic and Ginger fried with a few water additions until cooked and then spices and tomato added to make more of a BIR gravy, worked quite well as a quick fix. 

Wow, that's taking BIR to stratospheric levels 

My brother lives in Dunston, I'll have to send him the link to the vid. 

I've been using Himalayan Crown aged Basmati, my regular Indian Supermarket in Brisbane has been putting it out for 11 Aus Dollars for 5k.

However for a really nice Basmati by the kilo I was on Aldi Basmati for a couple of years, and will probably go back to that when the Himalayan Crown runs out.

I note that HC is also on Tesco's site in the UK. http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=271306938 although out of stock.