Get that dahl in yer  ;D

I find that with Chillies the plants seem to give their all and end up quite scraggy and exhausted looking, then bush up again for the next flush of fruit. Personally I'd pinch out early flowers and keep them fed, watered and keep them growing on till maybe July before fruiting. My two bobs worth.


Just processed the second crop from my no-name hot as hell chillies 











I do the dehydrating in the bathroom with the window open otherwise the house becomes uninhabitable  ;D
I now have enough chilli to keep West Bengal running for at least 40 seconds, two of those in a single serve is more than adequate, I'll just have to man up and increase my tolerance / consumption.

Oh the humanity.

With the Chinese stuff I think they cut the meat into flat "flakes" and zap it with enzymes that tenderise it almost to a jelly - I know the texture you are talking about.

I'm having the problem of sourcing mutton - used to be quite popular with the oldies but it's hard to come by nowadays, despite the fact that we have more sheep than people. And no, mutton is not tough if it's bred as a meat animal. Once you've tried roast leg of mutton you'll never want lamb again. Apparently it's a must in an authentic Biryani.

(edit: similar to the situation that I gave up looking at white women years ago)  ;D

I've got a pot of Fenugreek growing outdoors (Currently low to mid 20s in South East Queensland) but although they have been going for over a month and have put on a fair bit of growth, they don't smell at all like FG, just like pea pods 

I'll have another go - I simply sprouted some FG seeds from an Indian grocers, they nearly all came up and I culled them to about 15 plants.

I'll crack this eventually 

I use gallons of the stuff. The health concerns were due to the erucic acid content, especially amongst the anti-canola brigade as canola (rapeseed) oil contains a whack of it as well - rapeseed being related to mustard.

However I think that's now been consigned to the "aluminium pans will give you Alzheimers" category.

My seasoned oil that I use at the moment is:

50% Rice Bran Oil
25% Mustard Oil
25% Indian butter ghee

Fry a finely sliced onion until caramelised, then remove the bits. I keep it in a 750ml old beer bottle with a cork in the neck and use with gay abandon  ;D

Decoction mashing is and old German technique where they take some of the wet malted grain out of the mash, bring it to the boil in a separate pan and tip it back into the mash to raise its temperature. They do this two or three times until the mashing (conversion of the starches) is complete - takes a couple of hours.

Nowadays modern malts don't need decoction mashing unless you are really looking to duplicate a "high end" lager such as Pilsner Urquell. Most German breweries just do simple mashes and heat the mash in temperature steps by other means to emulate the old decoction method.

At home you can make a very drinkable lager by just a single step mash at around 64? using pale malt, then boil the 'runnings' with continental hops available from most home brew suppliers. Then ferment very cool using a lager yeast.

DMS is dimethyl sulphide which can be a by product of using true lager malts. It smells like creamed corn and you can pick it in some brews like Carling. Continental breweries boil the "wort" for 90 minutes to 2 hours (longer than a boil at an ale brewery) to boil off the DMS which can be objectionable at high levels, but it's still a signature of many lagers and adds to the complex aroma.

Never mind the Pataks: what about the Veeraswamy's little blue tins of sauce (served 2) - I used to use them in the 70s in Cardiff, Mate and I used to cook them up at work in the staff canteen with some precooked chicken and cooked rice I'd bring in. I got a couple in Australia about 10 years ago and I was particularly struck by the main ingredient: "margarine". 

Will report for sure

I did onion bhajis to C2go's recipe and I can't even begin to ..............

They were half sized as I wasn't using a pukka deep fryer. My usually talkative drinking mate was just making some low growling noises as he ate.

Now to get the pressure cooker out and make the next lot of base gravy for tomorrow, using the oil. Fortunately I have a shtload of Coriander in the herb garden 

How we suffer for our art 

I did an experiment this morning to make some seasoned oil. Heated about 600ml of Rice Bran Oil (very light flavoured high smoke point) with a good chunk of Indian Ghee and about half a cup of mustard oil, then deep fried a finely sliced medium onion until caramelised. Then I removed the onion "crisps" and when the oil cooled slightly, put in about 1/4 tsp of garam masala. When cold I funneled it off into a 750ml heavy glass Aussie Beer bottle, which by good fortune it just fills.

Already tasting awesome, my home brew Monday pissbuddy  : will be around for a few pints this afternoon so I'll reheat the oil and actually run up some onion bhajis, then readjust back to 750ml.

That should sort it out I reckon,  ;D - made a heap of dry mix this morning plus about 300ml of garlic ginger paste, all to C-2-go's specs. Going to marinate some chicken breasts so tomorrow is the day

Mark, off topic but I got a pack of that Geeta Medium madras, very very interesting - As well as the usual Cumin et al it has all sorts of minor unexpected stuff like black pepper, star anise, fennel, nutmeg and smells incredibly complex.

I work about 100 metres from Geeta so I'll try theirs. I was over there yesterday to get turmeric and as usual I just couldn't pass Maha Latchmi cafe and ended up scoffing a small thali - in my tea break not my lunch break  - passers by must have thought I was some sort of starved refugee or something the speed I shovelled it down, but boy was it good  ;D -

Nothing like a quickie to hit the spot 

I've always been a bit sceptical about Indian Supermarkets' own blends as I suspected they were just dumbed down for typical non-Indo Pak  buyers looking for an easy curry powder but I'll go with your suggestion and grab some tomorrow. I'm just about out of dry mix at the moment so good timing.