Wow MA. That's just a little bit disturbing.  I quite like the audio but I'm going to need to have somebody explain the intention of the video footage.

edit: It's OK. I understand. I'd never heard of Hartheim before.

Well you never know what you'll find trekking around the WWW and I just happen to have stumbled upon what I think is the best home cooked fried chicken recipe I've ever seen, prepared and tasted.  I'm not alone in this claim as my family, especially the young males, couldn't get enough of it.

It surprisingly came from my searching for different chicken kormas and I stumbled across this recipe on one of the Indian Cookery sites I found.  Once I'm on a site for a particular thing I usually have a look around at what else they have to offer. This was a real side bonus.

I followed the recipe exactly first time and the results are outstanding even if it is a lot of work.  Second time I sort of combined step 1 and 2 together and did the whole thing in a lot less time and really it didn't make too much difference. I also used my home made chicken seasoning but you could use whatever takes your fancy here.

Brilliant. I'll never buy fried chicken again.

http://khadizaskitchen.com/2014/03/06/crispy-fried-chicken/

So here is an updated version of my Base Sauce / Gravy comparison Spreadsheet.

I've added the Bajelkar book sauces in the Balti section because they come from a Balti Book, but really the Base sauce is more like a BIR when you look at it, (albeit with lots of G/G and Tomato compared to anything else) and her Butter Sauce is something completely different to anything else with no onion or water but with cream.

Also note that The Original Onion Base Gravy and Curried Away both use a spice mix that I have not yet analysed to * off the included spices as I did for the other one.

Worth noting as well, is the amount of water added to the different sauces. This comparison is based on 1 kg of onions and if we were to analyse them in terms of total finished liquid volume we would get a completely different view of spicing levels.

T = Tablespoon. t = teaspoon

I probably should have said "Baltistan style" Phil, meaning that the BIR possibly came from chefs who brought their cooking knowledge and techniques from that region, as opposed to "The Balti" as we know it, or don't.

My investigation and research is very circular and sometimes wildly tangential at the moment and it is clear that there is no single explanation as to how either BIR or Balti evolved.  I am, however, thoroughly enjoying the trip at this point.

Different singular and combined definitions of Balti so far:

A dish cooked in a Balti Pan.
A dish served in the same pan in which it was cooked, ie a Balti Pan, Karahi or Kadhai.
A dish that is dryer than a normal BIR curry with more meat and less sauce. (Contrary to what Jerry has recently posted.)
A dish that is eaten by using bread rather than utensils.
A dish that is an "Indian Stir Fry".
A dish that contains both meat and vegetables.
A dish that comes from Birmingham.

So does this mean that you can't have a Balti anywhere other than BRUM, in a normal pot, serve it on a plate, eat it with a knife and fork, have a saucy dish or a balti that contains only meat or vegetables at the exclusion of the other?  Can a balti be slow cooked?

Thanks J.
I have seen that book and I'll probably add it to my growing library of cookbooks.  At Graeme's suggestion I recently bought the "Real Balti Cookbook" (Baljekar). 

The interesting thing about this book (and others I already have) is that it provides a recipe for a restaurant style base sauce right at the beginning but then there is only a small section at the back of the book that uses it.  Only 6 recipes of the 100 in the book use the Kadhai Gravy (Balti base sauce) and another 5 use the Makhani Gravy (Butter Sauce). The rest of the book is predominately "Balti" cooked in traditional style.  To me they just look like any other Indian Recipe cookbook.

The apparent "definition of a Balti" from her viewpoint is that it is cooked in the Balti pan or Karahi, and actually refers to the Kadhai Sauce in one recipe as Karahi Sauce by mistake. Balti, Kadhai ,Karahi and wok all being different names for the same type of pot.

Some people claim BIR came from Balti style while others claim that Balti is a sub-section of BIR. Chicken / Egg syndrome? Or perhaps it's both in that BIR was developed from the Baltistan style of cooking as a region and then the "BRUM Balti" was refined and developed out of that.  It could be that we are actually dealing with 2 very different animals.

It is interesting you say that it contains more gravy as I have read the exact opposite.

I have put the data from a couple more Base Sauce recipes into my spreadsheet so today I'll add the one from this book and post another screenshot.


I agree that it is a task to try to investigate / replicate but it is something to do.  There is so much conflicting info and varied accounts of both BIR and Balti so there will be no definitive answer here, just my own observations.

Thanks MA.

Old faithfull.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkHhSiJxHrQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ReNfgZ4A1w

MA, you've been asked which naan, and which Jalfrezi, so I'll finish it up and ask which rice recipe?  Looks really good.

Rose water may be less exotic and powerful than the pandan.

As for quantity, I used 6 thigh cutlets for a combined weight of just over 1.2 kg so used the given qty of spicing.

The reason I mention this is because I've just read down further and I found an interesting point in one of the comments underneath , regarding increased quantity and adjusting spicing.  The advice given seems to be to increase spicing by 50% at each doubling of the bulk ingredients.

Would this be a normal "rule of thumb" for most spicing adjustments?  What about reducing size? Would 1/2 quantity require 66% spicing rather than 50%? or is this in realm of being insignificant where most recipes are concerned?  too small to get accurate measurement?

George, yes and yes I enjoyed it and it had very interesting complexities in the flavour. 

It was the first time I've used Pandan and I could only obtain Essence which is very strong so it may have been a little excessive but it didn't spoil the dish at all.  I could smell the strong nutty / vanilla aroma of Pandan for hours as I think I got a little on my fingers.

The original recipe also suggests using Bereshta or Fried Onions but I've been unable to source the appropriate seed kernels to make it.  I used thigh cutlets (on the bone), which I cleaved into 2 or 3 pieces to get regular sizes without being too big to cook in quick time, rather than a whole bird cut into pieces. Any chicken would do I suppose but thigh retains moisture best of all cuts.

Also worth note is that I am led to believe that White Poppy Seeds are what is called for in the recipe as well as in the reading I've done on Bereshta. I only had Black Poppy Seed but used it anyway.

Here is the link.

http://khadizaskitchen.com/2014/01/20/zafrani-chicken-korma/