I was keen to reply to Jon and anyone else who wants to discuss room heating, But due to the posts being transferred to this back water or naughty step type place, I'm out for the time being.

Suggestion - if Phil agrees - to move the heating and room temperature posts to a new thread, where I will be pleased to continue the conversation with anyone who is interested.

_{Done.  OT content now under "Off-topic replies", at "Off-topic replies / butter (bells), ghee, frying, room temperatures, heating, etc".}

Quote from: Peripatetic Phil on December 08, 2020, 07:54 PM
I have had the central heating running for about 16 hours a day for the past two days. 

Think of all the carbon being produced and the sheer inefficiency of your approach. I keep myself snug and warm (probably as warm as you are), rather than wasteful heating on all the air, furniture, walls and everything else around me.

Quote from: JonG on December 08, 2020, 04:32 PM
A kitchen at 6C is a splendid feat of energy efficiency!  The fridge will consume no power at all, no money is being spent on gas central heating for that room,

It extends further than the kitchen, actually. I discovered about 10 years ago how I could save around

My butter holder arrived. I loaded it up with butter and a little bit of water. At this time of the year, my kitchen isn't much warmer (currently 6C) than inside my fridge (2C-5C range) so it won't have much of a test until the warm weather comes back. I think it works by excluding air, to prevent micro organisms, a bit like a vacuum pack. I doubt if the water offers a jot of cooling by evaporation.

Robbo - thank you so much for bringing this product to my/our attention. I wasn't previously aware of such a device. I have now ordered one on amazon for

I looked them up. It seems the butter makes contact with water in the base, to keep air out. And the water needs to be changed every 3 days. Is that what you do?

Livo - I forgot to thank you for reminding me of traditional kormas when you originally said you didn't like Ghanna's BIR style korma. I found 3 or 4 recipes somewhere and they were all excellent, albeit quite different between each other, and nothing like a BIR korma.

The main changes I made to the lamb bhoona recipe was to add a fair amount of full cream yoghurt and not add any garam masala. This was because an earlier recipe I'd tried 10 years ago for a lamb curry used yoghurt and I thought it was worth trying. The yoghurt may have 'toned down' and smoothed out the spices, for all I know, because, as I said, my end result was really good, at least for my taste.

Quote from: Peripatetic Phil on November 19, 2020, 04:38 PM
if we can keep this discussion on track, I will move it to Suggestions for improving this site, which is where it deserves to be.

That's good but why not go to Group Tests rather than Suggestions? My idea is for several people to try the same recipe, whereas I think before it was different people trying different recipes.

Quote from: romain on November 19, 2020, 12:47 PM
Let's recap quickly. In 5 posts you have 1) found someone's role in a video on youtube incredibly irritating, repeating yourself on the matter, disparaged Richard's videos twice, attacked my incredibly poor dhansak without ever once explaining why, and once again claimed mastery of a recipe but refuse to share (I think we all know what that's about).

Here are my responses:
1. Yes, I found someone's role in a video on youtube incredibly irritating. I wasn't the only one or even the first to comment on it, so why are you picking on me? Moreover, let's pretend that live cooking stream was being overseen by you, like as a film director. Would you have thought the set-up worked? I doubt it, given the high presentation quality apparent on your web site.
2. Richard's youtube channel. Good luck to him if he's found a way of making some money. I simply find the live streams too stretched out - that's all. It doesn't take almost an hour to cook a BIR type curry.
3. Your dhansak. I'm sorry I found it lacked the typical flavour of most BIR dhansaks. I tried your recipe because I was interested in the use of tamarind, rather than lemon, for example. I thought the tamarind might be part of the flavour you get from BIR dhansaks. But it wasn't. My conclusion is that most BIRs use lemon or lime and either of those taste better than tamarind.
4. Refusing to share the recipe I used for a lamb bhoona. I did share it by giving the name of the book. Then, within the last 24 hours I found a note on a change I'd made to the recipe. I was going to share the change with Livo. What do you think that's all about, as you put it?

I still hope to try your recipe for saag aloo. Please confirm that's up there with your most credible recipes. Perhaps several of us could try that recipe and report back to the forum within the 'group tests' section. Phil and I tasted a very good saag aloo in August at an Indian restaurant in Newquay. If your recipe comes out as good as that, or anywhere near, then it would completely transform my opinion of your ability to publish worthwhile recipes.