I saw some cheap onions on sale up Ladypool Road - not that bloody cheap tho! Where's he get them from?? ;-)

This is one from the same place stole from another thread. Sorry Andy Dunn!

They're obviously a known Pakistani/Lahori speciality. But it must be a Birmingham thing to sell them in TAs I think. Never seen them anywhere else.

Good point... I just find too much mix powder is the kiss of death in most curries as is too much methi. Less is more as they say. In the case of chilli powder however, more is more! 

That sounds about right SS. I'll give them a go. I'm surprised no one has really mentioned them on here before as they're really tasty.

Sverige. In all of the above ebooks the standard amount of mix powder in most curries is 1 Tablespoon. I think a tablespoon of mix powder per curry to be too much personally. I think half a tbsp/1.5tsp to be the optimum amount.

Hi UF

Yeah the ones I had were "closed" with meat encased in the pastry rather than topped like a pizza. Are the closed ones a midlands thing do you think? Some things do seem to be very regional in the world of BIR and balti do they not. That probably explains why so far only you seem to know what I'm talking about.

Livo's right there are plenty of recipes on here to keep you going although there's no harm in having ebooks in your armoury if you're serious about BIR. C2G ebook 1 is probably best as the recipes it contains are simpler. Book 2 contains some strange recipes I'm sure even some of the most experienced curry cooks on here have never heard of!

For me a lot of Julian's recipes contain far too many ingredients to be deemed as authentic and he recommends too much mix powder in his recipes in my opinion. But all in all there's no harm in trying them. His dhansak, madras and korma recipes at least are all worthy representatives of those dishes.

Mick Crawfords Curry Barking Mad ebooks seem closer to the real McCoy but again, you may need to use less than his prescribed amount of spice. Nevertheless I've enjoyed some of his curries very much. South Indian chilli chicken being a favourite of mine. Knowing what I know now, if I ever follow any of those recipes again I would use slightly different cooking techniques next time. Try them. I learned from them and no doubt so will you.

Regarding meat free curries. Just follow a pre-cooked chicken recipe and substitute the meat for a selection of vegetables ie potato, cauliflower, carrots, mushrooms and chunks of onion and just part cook them.

All the best.

You don't need no imported chickens. Cut it up into chunks, and pressure cook it with your preferred precook spices etc plus a little extra water. 8 minutes from the second it comes up to pressure. Done! Super soft chicken breast.

I like the idea of chips instead of rice. Do you find using mustard oil to be more BIR tasting than veg oil alone chewy?