Balti Sauce / Gravy compared to BIR.

No mate. He's talking about 3 different portion sizes.

240 ml is a single portion size. That's 1 cup of sauce.  We don't know how much meat / protein he uses in this but he gets 5 of these out of his 1200 ml of sauce.  As a single person serving I would suggest using about 200 g of meat / protein.

The 100 ml and 100 g protein is his buffet sized portion.  Obviously used when catering and the curry is only part of a meal.

Lastly is his 450 ml of sauce with only 150 g of meat, which is what he puts in a T/A meal container.

Add to that the fact that these Indian dish names are used rather liberally to refer to something with spices.    My next misguided project will be to attempt to determine exactly what constitutes a dish having any given title. I'm pre-OCD and probably anal retentive as well, but it just sets my buzzer off when there is inconsistency and poor standardisation.   Weights and measures and things of that nature are easily remedied, but naming of completely different things as the same is just bothersome and in my view counterproductive to say the least.

Bring out the poison darts. I'm ready for you.

Quote from: George on October 20, 2014, 11:43 PM

The thing that irritates me about the notdelia author is zero acknowledgment on where he or she is coming from. You'd think it was all a result of original research, which it most certainly is not.

I've certainly seen the Base Sauce recipe before today.

Sverige, your math is wrong.   

He's saying 1200ml / 5 = 240 ml per serve, but no mention of quantity of meat added to this amount.

Buffet portions are 100ml of sauce to 100 gm of protein, so the litre of sauce is used for each kg of meat.  Don't know if this is before or after thinning the sauce out to 1200 mls though.

AND he confirms what we all already know about T/A, by them giving you triple the ratio of sauce to meat as given in the buffet portion.  100:100 (1:1) compared to 450:150 (3:1).

Quote from: Unclefrank on October 20, 2014, 11:06 AM
Same here http://www.notdelia.co.uk/british-indian-restaurant-curry-different-curry-styles/

Basic shorthand concept is similar but the ingredients and prep are quite different when examined, plus the dishes are alphabetically listed.

It also appears the notdelia is another of the "list onion as an ingredient but don't use it brigade".

So Balti is a dining experience, only available in Brum, rather than the food?

I have been reading everything I can on Balti and Kushi on the site and following the links and one thing that is emerging is that there are regular references to a Balti being just a BIR (albeit a good one).  I am puzzled by the posts of some, who like their balti with "lots of sauce" and want to "keep the base gravy thin".  If anything at all, these characteristics would in fact make it "anything but a balti".

I can't see that happening any time soon M, and really it isn't going to cause me to toss and turn.  I'm just a little confused as to what actually constitutes a curry being called a Balti.

Mind you I di not intend this topic to be totally about Balti.  There are many areas of general confusion in this area of cooking.  I guess I was just hoping that there was a simple explanation.  Obviously not and after 38 pages of discussion in the Three Baltis thread I'm not sure even the gurus actually know either.

Never mind.  I might just buy a book and put a sign out the front that says Birmingham.

Another way to ask this beginners question in the beginners section is:
How is a "Real Balti" different from any other style?
(and I don't mean the Wikipedia definition, ie: "A Balti (Balti: ?, Urdu: ??) is a type of curry served in a thin, pressed steel wok-like "balti bowl".[1] It is served in many restaurants in the United Kingdom. The consensus appears to be that the term refers to the pot in which the curry is cooked,[2][unreliable source?] rather than to any specific ingredient or cooking technique, although it is stated that it is cooked until the cooking liquid has largely evaporated. [3]")

Quote from Bengali Bob Oct 2 2013. Three Baltis

"The main thing that is throwing me somewhat at the moment is that the Kushi base, spice mix and pre-cooks are, I feel, essentially very much like what (in the right hands) can be used to make typical high-quality "BIR faire", whereas the actual dishes from the Kushi are (in my experience) high-quality "Birmingham balti".  Both highly desirable food stuffs, yet markedly different in nature."

This is on p 11/38. Waters still muddy for me but I intend to read the whole thread this morning and some of the links contained therein.

Curryhell from p 6
"Maybe one day, i'll get back to Brum and get to try a real balti.  I sure as hell am not going to get anything close down my neck of the woods, albeit served in the right dish and called a balti  .
Good luck to those on the balti quest."

fried from p15
"I've heard people talk in hushed whispers about the Birmingham Baltis but unfortunatly missed the boat on that. I find it hard to understand the exact difference in taste between Balti and standard BIR."

jerry p16
"across most of BIR land there is no difference between Balti and BIR dishes."

So I've read the 38 pages and it would appear that Jerry has provided the closest thing to a method / ingredient list to a Balti, as far as a couple of people are concerned anyway.  I see very little difference in ingredients to other curries and the method is about low heat / quick fry as opposed to high heat / singeing.

Stock, soy, tomato powder, rose petals, pandan, ajwain (which is not lovage), secret GM's, oil or ghee, pre-cooked meat or fresh. All still not answered definitively.  What makes a balti a balti?

A mate of mine had a bootleg album years ago by an artist labelled Bruce Dylan.  Plain white cardboard outer and a stuck on printed label.  It was actually EC in concert from back in 1976/77 when he toured UK and SW States after his rehab.  I long ago lost my tape recording of it.  Last night I sat and spent several hours going over clips, archives, venue histories and music sharing sites and finally found what I was after.

It was actually a recording of his Nov 15 1976 concert in Dallas Texas made for radio airplay and not ever meant to be released as an album.  In my opinion it is some of the best EC ever even if sound quality is a bit dodgy.  His two female backup singers are brilliant, the band is on fire and EC is God.  Marcy Levy and Yvonne Elliman each do a solo of "One Night With You" and "Cant Find My Way Home" respectively.

The Old Grey Whistle Test has a similar performance from around the same time, but definitely not as good, however Kitty Terry has remastered "Tell the Truth" for youtube and it is good.  If you like EC check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adET5cMnrBo

The recorded concert went:
Hello Old Friend, Sign Language, Badge (9.03), Knocking on Heavens Door, One Night With You, Tell The Truth (14.00), Cant Find My Way Home, Blues Power (13.00), Layla (12.33) and Further On Up The Road. What a blast to recover a long lost album that was a favourite.

181.44 MB file called ecl76mp.rar if you want it. It can't be piracy as it was never released commercially anyway. Well that's my thinking.