Bump:

Mate in Brisbane gave me these cuttings in pot, they are starting to take off and the leaves have a very pungent aroma.
I've never used curry leaves, do these look like the genuine species?

OOps, sorry that should have been Geezah for the brewer. 

Hi Michael.t - I also use yeast and baking powder combination, I've been making stovetop naan with this recipe for a while now, it turns out very nice if eaten straight away:

http://www.greatcurryrecipes.net/2011/10/31/a-stove-top-naan-recipe-that-is-easy-and-delicious/

Might make a batch to have with my Saag Panir this afternoon 

I'm also a brewer, I guess that bread yeasts are designed to be very fast workers as opposed to beer yeasts that should be more slow and steady, but worth a try if you run out. Kingfisher Naan??? 

I've made Ghee a few times, but by the time you have spent an anxious hour trying not to burn the stuff, then waited an hour to cool before straining through cheesecloth, which seems to waste a heap through retention in the fabric, then the absolutely horrific cleanup of the greasiest utensils and pans you can imagine, I think it's well worth the ?6 I pay from the Indian Grocer for a kilo  ;D

However it's like any other artisanal thing I suppose, if you feel a sense of achievement then go ahead. I've got onto a supply of unhomogenised milk and going to have a stab at making Paneer as it's impossible to get an authentic version here. So same priniciple applies I guess.

Good point, Dez - I'm a home craft-brewer and when it's my turn to host a brew day and I know that 15 club guys are going to turn up for the day I need something pre-prepared for lunch, and nearly always bung on a Pork Vindaloo or something similar.

I do everything BIR style, except for the pork which I cube, dredge in flour and fry till sealed, then tip everything (base sauce, masala, passata, vinegar, whole can of coconut cream (naughty) etc etc etc) into a big electric slow cooker the night before, and get up at 5am to turn it off, then re warm it for lunch and serve with masses of rice and a few packets of supermarket shrink wrapped garlic rotis etc. and a raita, the sounds at lunch are reminiscent of a porn movie 

However for my own day to day, I like to do the fast and furious.  ;D

Quote from: curryhell on March 07, 2012, 08:35 PM

Quote from: parker21 on March 07, 2012, 07:57 PM
hi guys we have a leccy knob but i only use it if and its a big IF my ikcle  gas camping stove with butane cannisters that throws out more heat than the leccy knobs does anyway at 2.2kW. so gas all the way and at 4 gas cannisters for a fiver and 1 1/2 hours on full power longer if you simmer LOL! i cook a curry 5 out of 7 nights am never disappointed!
regards
gary

You just reminded me that i have one of these portable stove that i have never used .  Now would seem like the perfect time to brush off the dust and give it singeing session.  Where do you get your gas cannisters from Parker 21?  That seems a good price

Great tip guys, I've been watching the YouTube videos of guys cooking with those little wok style pans and stirring and shaking, and you just can't do that with electric. I've got real old school solid metal hobs that are excellent for simmering, but it takes so long for them to heat up and cool down that I can't apply bursts of heat as required. The camping stoves are dead cheap and I can always get the canisters from the Asian shops or even from Aldi who get them in often.

Great stuff, thanks. I don't know if you are familiar with Maharani's at Boondall, North Brisbane, I love their creamy sauces and wondered if they had cashew in them - I'll give that nut gravy a go. 

I asked them which part of India they are from and they are actually Gujarati and say they have never been to the UK, so maybe that's why they have a slightly different take on BIR - it's the only Indian restaurant that SWMBO likes to visit even though we have a branch of Indian Brothers five minutes walk from us here on Bribie Island.  :

If you maybe wanted to PM me the name of your restaurant in confidence, I wouldn't mind popping in sometime.
Cheers

And God Save her Majesty who visited recently

I've posted a few times already but should post in the intro section here. I was born in Pontefract, raised in Newcastle and spent about 10 years in Cardiff before migrating here to Queensland in 1978, really miss the neighbourhood BIR restaurants. When I left the UK it was that interesting period when most of the Chinese sit-down restaurants started closing down and migrating to takeaway stores, then a month later an Indian (Well Bangladeshi as we know) restaurant would spring up in the vacated premises.

When I arrived in Oz there were no Indian restaurants that I was aware of. Brisbane is about the same population as Tyne Wear and not a one. Nowadays there are several dozen, it's really blossomed over the last 15 years. And all or most of them are BIR - I think what's happened is that they are UK-naturalised Indians and Bangla Deshis who have now been able to migrate here on the strength of their UK citizenship and opened restaurants, and of course brought the Chicken Tikka Masala with them. Good on them  ;D

Due to various health problems I'm on a low salt diet so can't frequent restaurants, except for an occasional falling-off-the-wagon that I allow myself, but cooking my own is a fascinating hobby (obsession?)

Great to have such a resource as this forum. Biggest eye opener for me has been the base sauce concept, and also buying all the whole spices and roasting / grinding.

I've read at various times the "urban myth" version of how Chicken Tikka Masala came into being, and that the original version used a mixture of blended cashews with Campbells Tomato Soup as the base sauce.

:

However, that aside, I haven't had a food blender for a few years, one came on special recently so I bought it - it's a good old-school blender with metal base and glass jug and a killer for doing nut milks, so I ran up about half a litre of cashew cream with unsalted cashews and water, tastes divine, and wondering what recipes? I used about half a cup which I stirred into boiled red lentils today whilst doing a Tarka dahl, just before hitting it with the smoking garlic/ginger/cumin/hing oil, and it's hit the spot.

Do BIR restaurants use cashew cream in many dishes? 

I just ordered his "Balti" book from The Book Depository, so let's see how that goes.

On the subject of fats, I was briefly on a Paleolithic diet (what you can kill, pick off a tree, dig out of the ground with a sharp stick or gather from a nest preferably after climbing up a 500m cliff face)  ;D - one of the interesting things I learned was the industrial conspiracy behind the "saturated fats and butter are bad, veg oils and marge are good" mantra.

This mob explain it far better than I could: http://www.drcranton.com/nutrition/oiling.htm
It's a long read but will raise your eyebrows. And very appropriate to this forum.

However it's true what they say, that 80 years ago, despite the fact that most people would live to 70 or 80 except they often got knocked off by infectious disease, coal mining accidents or several World Wars - growing up in the UK in the 1950s all my aunties and grannies lived to 95 but the men got culled out by the above fates.... I digress - heart attacks were very rare. But everyone lived on bread and dripping, breakfasts fried in lard and as much butter as they could afford. They also walked to work, did manual or hard factory work and didn't sit on their arses in front of an LCD for half the day, and a perfect weekend consisted of playing local soccer or climbing Pen-Y-Ghent with the Mrs and Kids. When I was a wee nipper I drank the little bottle of olive oil from the medicine cabinet and Mam rushed me off to the doctor ... 

I buy Indian ghee from a local Indian Grocer for ?6 a kilo tin, nice.  And it's from genuine holy cows