Always suspicious of ready meal curries. Some are OK in an emergency, but it's rare. Oddly one of the best I had was in hospital in Liverpool.

Was dying for a curry, so decided to order from their Halal menu. Woman came round to ask what everyone wanted - I said "Chicken Tikka Masala please". Her answer? Conversation went like this ...

"You can't have that!"
"Why not?"
"It's Halal"
"And?"
"Well, it's not your culture!"

Was fuming - pointed out that she had no idea what my "culture" was and for all she knew I could be a devout Muslim. She backed down in the end, but she sulked for three days!!! lol

Upshot was though, a surprisingly nice curry

The dry, powdered ones definitely work best for Pilau rice. Does nothing for the flavour obviously, but does make it look "right".

When frying up the cold, cooked rice, remove from the heat and put an tiny pinch (tip or handle of a teaspoon is best) of red on one side, and the same with yellow as far away in the wok/pan as you can, leave for 30 seconds or so and then put back on heat and gently mix it around. You just end up with a perfect, very impressive mixture of coloured and plain grains - better than the liquid ones where it can easily colour everything.

Was looking a the vast selection of frozen prawns and fish in my local international supermarket today and they had bags of around little "thinfin bream" for about ?3 (around 20 in a bag at a guess).

Wikipedia says that they swim in Indian waters, they looked like the kind of thing that is more likely to be used in Chinese cooking. Very small, about 25cm in length.

Anyone tried to use them?

Looks good Looking for inspiration for something different what I normally do with lamb ribs.
Just got some this morning, freshly cut up in Asian butchers for ?2.99/kg - Can't go wrong at that price!