I'll give this a go over the next couple of weeks, Sverige. Looks interesting. Might chuck in some chunks of green pepper!

Quote from: Naga on November 24, 2018, 09:53 AMI don't use the spiced oil - it's too much of a faff for me. I did try it out when I came across the recipe at first, but it didn't add enough to the dish to encourage it's continued use.

As with most recipes, I adapt them to suit my own circumstances (and the contents of my store cupboard!).

For what it's worth, here's the ingredients list to serve 2 with my italicised substitutions in square brackets, where appropriate:

Ingredients

300g skinless chicken breast [14-16 pieces of pre-poached chicken breast]
75 ml spiced oil [a large glug of sunflower oil]
1 tsp fresh garlic (pureed) and 0.5 tsp fresh ginger (pureed) [2 heaped tsp Ashoka Garlic/Ginger paste]
1 tbsp tomato paste (diluted to a puree with 3 tbsp water)
300ml curry base [450ml JB's Base Gravy (I use 1 large bulb of garlic for the final tarka)]
1 tsp curry masala [1 tsp Abdul Mohed's 8-Spice Mix Powder]
1 tsp curry powder [1 tsp East End Mild Madras Curry Powder]
1 tsp chilli powder
0.25 tsp tandoori masala [0.5 tsp Pat Chapman's Tandoori Masala]
0.5 tsp salt
3 tsp sugar
2 tsp lemon juice [a couple of good squirts of lemon juice or lemon dressing, whatever's to hand]
3 tbsp coconut powder (dissolved in a little water to make a paste)
fresh chopped coriander (to taste)
fresh chillies (optional) [1 or 2 green chillies, left whole]

Hope this helps!

Quote from: livo on November 26, 2018, 10:52 PMI love JerryM's approach to his curry...

+1 Sadly missed from this forum.

Quote from: livo on November 24, 2018, 10:55 PMIngredient list follows...At the moment our favourite dish is the Lamb Korma Balti.

Many thanks for that livo. I'll give this recipe a bash over the next couple of weeks - I always like to try something new. And thanks for the reminder about your Lamb Korma Balti as it had slipped my mind. It's on the list of things-to-do (again!).

QuoteIf I tell Mrs L it's a Sri Lankan curry she'll be in.

I can't lay any claim to this Chicken Ceylon recipe as it was published on the forum by a former member, nor can I vouch for it's authenticity. But I can vouch for it's flavour - it's a family favourite!

I don't use the spiced oil - it's too much of a faff for me. I did try it out when I came across the recipe at first, but it didn't add enough to the dish to encourage it's continued use.

I'd be interested to hear about any comparisons with similar recipes from the book you mention. I'm always on the lookout for the next tasty dish to prepare!

Double post!

As long-term forum members will be aware, I am a great advocate of the Ceylon Curry. I just had to have some again last night with some home made naan bread.

So...I had another go at this naan bread recipe.

It was a last-minute decision as I had exhausted my supply of commercially-produced naans and chapatis, so, remembering what livo had said previously about preparing the dough as a single batch, that's just what I did. I also had to cut back on the resting times else dinner would have turned into a midnight snack, so both resting periods were restricted to 90 minutes only.

I used exactly the same ingredients as I did on the previous occasion, including fermented milk in place of buttermilk but excluding the double-dose of yeast!

Given my miserable experience with the oven method, I reverted to using the non-stick crepe pan. I heated it up over my large central hob burner until it was smoking and placed the naan dough onto the dry pan. I brushed the naan with melted butter and, this time, I kept a good eye on the cooking progress. I didn't allow it to burn and crisp this time, just cooking it sufficiently to let the dough bubble while delivering resonable charring on the base. I didn't time the process, but I reckon the dough was on the pan for around 90 seconds.

When I was happy with the look of the bread, I lifted it onto a plate and repeated the process with the second naan, finally placing it on top of the first naan and covering both with a damp tea-towel.

I got on with preparing the curry itself and, when it was ready, reheated the crepe pan and charred the uncooked side of the naans for around a minute, adding some more melted butter and a scattering of fresh coriander when they were served.





This time, the naans were perfect (for me, anyway!) - they were cooked through, they were light, fluffly and delicious and mopped up the Ceylon Chicken curry perfectly! If I say so myself, they compared more than favourably with takeaway or restaurant naans, a view seconded by my good lady wife, and I doubt very much if I'll buy another supermarket naan.

The naan conundrum has now been cracked as far as I'm concerned, so my thanks again to livo for flagging up the recipe and giving his observations on method.

Quote from: livo on November 21, 2018, 10:05 AM
Is anybody else thinking what I'm thinking?

;D

Thanks for sharing your experiences, livo. It's a real time-saver when others describe their methods in detail and avoids a lot of grief pursuing goals down a dead end.

Sadly for me, the second attempt using the batch dough I refrigerated didn't work out as well as the initial trial. My oven just can't achieve the temperatures required to cook the naan quickly enough to stimulate internal air bubbles and surface charring before actually burning - as the photos will demonstrate.



I pre-heated a metal baking tray in the oven at it's maximum temperature of 230C, and tried the 4 naans in both the centre and top of the oven. Cooking times varied between 6 and 10 minutes. The naans failed to bubble up and remained flat throughout, browning rather than charring on the tops. This compares against cooking on a pre-heated skillet on the gas hob where the naan bubbled up almost instantly. The downside is that the base was more charred than desirable, but, as Garp observed previously, a lttle crispness is ok and not at all unpleasant.

I couldn't compare my best effort to a proper restaurant or takeaway naan - it's a different beast altogether - but it was certainly much better than most supermarket offerings I've tried.

Anyway, although the resulting oven-baked naans didn't turn out as I would have hoped, they were still quite light and did their job in mopping up curry! I think I'll be sticking to the stovetop method though.