I've been to the Brisbane cooking classes described by Mark. He's actually setting up his own website but not sure if it's open to the public yet - Mark will advise.

Anyway as Mark says the secret is in the gravy which is more like a paste. Also the chicken needs to be precooked, and the dish is quickly assembled from the gravy and the chicken and is diluted to the desired consistency.

Aha, I've found Mark's original thread here: https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=8382.0Also I posted some photos on that thread, you can adapt that to making Australian Style butter chicken as well, I was doing a Madras a the time.

With a butter chicken I don't use blended cashew nuts, I use ground almonds which are easier and about the same price, Mark says the restaurants use either, or a combination, depending on what's available. Couple of heaped table spoons does the trick.

Did it end up snowing there today? We are waiting for the Sub-Antarctic blast up here in Queensland, just in time for the Annual Brisbane Exhibition Show of course, bang on schedule. 

Good curry weather.

Edit: that was a dumb statement - it's always good curry weather.

Some of those meat tenderiser mixes contain an evil amount of salt, best check the ingredients.

Quote from: Dajoca on August 03, 2012, 12:44 AM
So why do I get ads for Viagra, Baldness and lesbian dwarves, when I'm not bald?

I get those as well. Not interested in most of those, but I like to wear Doc Martins, check shirts and short hair, and attracted to women so maybe I'm targetted as a lesbian. 

Fullers ESB is a nice drop. 

Precooking the meats (lamb, chicken etc) came as total news to me when I started on my curry career.
It occurred to me that this could be employed in other styles.

I regularly buy a whole Black Angus yearling rump (around 9 GBP a Kilo here in Oz) and get the tender end sliced into steaks and the tougher end just left as is for me to cube up myself.

Inspired by my curry adventures I did a precook with a heap of thinly sliced meat, but using non-Indian flavourings. I initially stir fried it in batches with finely chopped onions then simmered for two hours just covered with water, black peppercorns, a splash of Worcestershire sauce, one grated garlic cube, bay leaves a hint of fresh thyme.

One gripe with the likes of Beef Strog is that the meat can turn out a bit chewy with the quick cook methods. I can now turn out Strog with meltingly tender meat strips, it goes perfectly in a traditional UK style pie filling for pies and steak bakes, and frozen in batches it seems to lend itself to any beef dish that features coating sauces. The resulting stock can be blended back in during cooking as we do with BIR and adjusted at cooking time with a splash of wine, extra herbs etc.

Although I haven't tried it yet, I reckon it would also be the duck's nuts in Beef with Black bean etc.

Thanks to curry for a new discovery  ;D

I visit a big farmers market every second Sunday. This area of South East Queensland is ginger growing territory (I grew a meagre crop myself last year but with farm stuff available for around 4 GBP a kilo for fresh pink moist ginger why would you bother  ;D)

So far I have been whizzing up Garlic Ginger Paste to Levitesh's recipe with water and oil, and to make it worthwhile to drag out the blender, I end up with about half a litre which I store in a takeaway container in the fridge. However as it's a fresh product - as opposed to the commercial jars that have stabilisers etc - it goes a bit sour and manky after a few weeks.

I'm wondering if it can be frozen without ill effect? I've got a kilo of ginger at the moment and a heap of purple garlic but before re inventing the wheel I was wondering if anyone else does this.

I volunteered to do lunch at our Annual Winter (it's Winter here  ;D) home brew club get together in Brisbane. Catering for about 30, cranked out 2 batches of each using the A.I.R. gravies, stocks, precooked meats.

L to R: Butter Chicken (cream added), Chicken Madras (coconut cream) and Beef Vindaloo. Basmatti rice. Raita. The Naan was cooked by a Scottish Member Campbell who's also a curry freak.

Sous-chef Anna (wife of the host )

All scoffed enthusiastically accompanied by pints of craft beers of course. Many thanks to the local "cooking with JJ" classes.

If anyone's interested, last night's Masterchef (episode 40) they had to cook for a traditional Hindu Wedding, Sri Lankan style. Interesting that it was vegetarian - not too much info about the recipes.

If you have a spare hour to waste, episode is here: (8 Parts) - http://www.masterchef.com.au/video.htm?movideo_m=199393

I'm a home brewer and have a 40L electric boiler with a temperature dial and thermostat so you can dial in any temperature up to boiling (you can get them in the UK under the "Buffalo" name. )

The thermostat isn't too accurate as they are made mostly as boilers for tea and coffee in restaurants and church halls ladies' bingo sessions, but I'll do a test run to see if I can get a steady temperature, and try it with a whole rib - need to source some vacuum bags.

I mentioned this on a home brew forum and one guy already does this with corned silverside that he cooks for 72 hours