I do very rarely buy saffron and I have a small packet in my spice cupboard. Once again, I find it to be an extreme luxury I can well live without, although I do love Saffron Rice.  I am usually quite content to substitute Safflower for the real thing.  You get the colour, but you need to imagine the flavour.

I don't usually eat enough dahl, or other vegetarian dishes, to cause the digestive disturbance meant to be prevented by using hing.

Thanks Santa.  The Yemeni Mandi I really liked the first time I made it, and the smokiness was great.  The second time I tried it, the charcoal sort of fizzed out and the smokiness failed and tasted like a bad fire.  Well, it wasn't that bad, but the first time was far better.

https://www.archanaskitchen.com/arabian-chicken-mandi-recipe-yemeni-style-rice-chicken

Thank you, George. There's some very useful information there.  Yes, you are correct that my geographical location and lack of ever experiencing the real thing, does limit my understanding of what I'm striving to achieve.  This has never deterred me from attempting to emulate BIR from afar.  I still know when I've cracked a good curry though.  Once again, I can only assume that if I'm following the same instructions, using the same ingredients, as you guys are, I must be achieving the same dishes in the end.

This is where it is useful for chaps, such as yourself, to prepare and sample the new recipes, provide feedback as to how good or bad they are in relation to dishes you've actually eaten and use as benchmarks.

Almost everything I can find is either powdered (with additives) or compounded block (with additives).  There is only one listing on eBay for resin chunks that is from outside Australia, would take 1 month to deliver and cost AU $14 for 25g which is $560 / kg.  I can't justify that cost no matter how good it is.

I was just referring to the fact that Chef Din appears to be demonstrating the way they cooked it back in the 1970s restaurant.  I will certainly give it a try in the BIR method to see if it is similar.  No! I won't put pineapple or other crapifiers (is that a real word) in it.  I do like it on pizza with ham and prawns though.

I'm now keen to try adding some smokiness.

Edit:  The dish I've prepared using the dhungar smoking method is Yemeni Chicken Mandi (Arabian Biryani).

Another interesting thing is that my kitchen has a wonderful residual Indian restaurant aroma this morning.  More than I usually experience after much bigger and more elaborate cook-ups.

I've never been able to find the pure resin stuff.  I believe the yellow container gear is more for the intestinal digestive benefit rather than flavour, because it provides nothing in my experience.

Nice spice box Robbo. Mine is the basic one with just 7 little bowls and 2 spoons.  I always worry about its ability to keep the spices fresh as they're quite exposed to air inside the outer container.  I keep pink salt in the middle and then coriander, cumin, garam masala, kashmiri chilli, sweet paprika and turmeric around the ring.

Santa, this recipe is just lemon juice and sugar, although it does have a fair spurt of Worcestershire sauce, which you can't really distinguish in the final dish.  The spicing is really quite basic and I liked it.  If it had the full compliment of hot chilli powder it would be hot.  Zero smoky element though.  I have used the dhungar method to introduce smokiness to another chicken dish.  I think it was an Arabic or Persian dish which I really enjoyed the first time. Second attempt didn't work as well. I still have the recipe.

George, you didn't give any clue as to what you believe goes into a recipe that has potential. Naming restaurants over there has no benefit on a globally read forum.  I'd be happy to try your time consuming procedure if you'd care to provide details.

I don't know how this would have been cooked in restaurants as even cooking the lentils at the same time as the dish takes at least an hour. There are 3 stages, melting onions, cooking and spicing chicken and then reduction and each stage is at least 20 minutes or more.

Interesting George.  What do you think would give the ones you like that earthy / smoky taste?  Black Cardamom would be the spice I'd imagine for that, but I don't see it in this recipe.

Note for next time. Use way less water.  In general, Chef Din's stated amounts on the ingredient list do not appear to correlate to the video images of the quantities actually going into the pans, and I've ended up with a soup that will require a hell of a lot of reduction.  I didn't even add the full amount of water to either the lentils or the actual dish pot because I just knew it was too much by looking at it.  Tastes ok though, so I just hope the chicken doesn't disintegrate while I reduce the sauce.

Edit:  This is very tasty, and I made it mild (for Mrs L).  I used Kashmiri Chilli Powder and extra Paprika, but it certainly would cope with a bit of extra heat.  The sweet and sour balance is very good.  After 30 minutes of slow simmer and constant stirring in the final stage it reduced down to a good sauce consistency.  Another dish I'll be doing again.  Not fast BIR but worth the effort.

"Back in the 70's .... we used to sell hundreds a week." 

Here is a video of a supposed 1970's BIR Chicken Dansak uploaded to YT by Chef Din fairly recently. He does say that back in the day it used to be just sweet and sour unless the customer asked for it hot and he says that the chilli heat is a variable to taste, as I feel is always the case anyway.  After thoroughly enjoying the Dhansak recipe posted by Tempest63 recently, I've decided I'm going to give this a go.  I know a few people here express interest (and disappointment) in the dish, so perhaps this one will tick a few boxes.  I do like Chef Din's approach and the recipes of his I've made so far have been good.  I can't see why this would be different.

He does have 4 different Chicken Dansak videos, but this is the most recent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi36tUI60NM

Rik's put it up on his YouTube Channel. Backyard Chef.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY8d5IB0RAc