Made this Chicken Bhuna the other night. Really enjoyed it. First time i've used star anise in a BIR final dish but definitely added something positive to the flavour. Tried a new method of pre-cooking chicken which worked well too.
Diced up some chicken thighs and sealed them off in a hot wok for a min or 2 with a sprinkle of turmeric until they start to colour, then popped in the steamer for 10 mins, result was perfectly tender.

Just got back from seeing Oasis at wembley and stopped for a curry on the way back at the passage to india on the Finchley rd, I had a lamb Xacutti and my friend went for a chicken Madras. The Xacutti was described as a Goan dish with malt vinegar and a "special blend of herbs and spices".
The dish in itself was very nice but pretty hot,I assume they used the same base sauce for both dishes,the best i can do to describe it was a lamb bhuna with very finely diced onion and green pepper and large chunks of tomatoes,it had a really thick sauce though,almost like a dhansak,it contained a lot of dessicated coconut and something else which thickened it, don't think it was lentils though,possibly pureed chickpeas? I reckon they add this as some sort of paste towards the end of the dish,and a fair bit of chilli powder.hope this helps.

The base sounds similar to the Rajver base i've been making for some time now,apart from the addition of garlic and ginger, I always chuck in a stick of celery for good luck too.

Thanks,
I had a quick look on google yesterday,most of the acharis involve tempering whole pickleing spices at the start of the dish,mustard + fennel seeds seemed to crop up alot, so I'll see if i can incorporate this into it some how,I might even try one from scratch at some point,I'll have a crack at the cheats/DIY version for now and try and track down some mixed pickle of even Mango pickle,reckon that could be tasty.

Adds a whole new meaning to the "Donor Card" lets hope he wasn't carrying one!

Fantastic opportunity, looking forward to hearing how you get on.

I've had a BIR achari dish before and it was really good, anyone have a good recipe?, I've got a couple of Lamb Bhunas in the freezer which I cut back on the chilli powder with and wish I hadn't,so now they're a bit on the mild side, was thinking of stirring in a dollop of lime pickle when I defrost it, what do you think?

Mine was the Alameda Tandoori in Ampthill around 1985, remember going for a fantastic curry in Bedford around the same time too.

I use tinned in my base sauce then fresh in a finished curry if i'm making a bhuna or something, the tinned ones can be a bit acidic but when they're cooked through in a base sauce it takes the edge off them and they become sweeter.
If you use fresh try plum toms, or toms on the vine they are bit more expensive but taste a lot better than the watery salad tomatoes the supermarkets sell loose.

I use the large Dutch green chillis widely availiable in the supermarket,the majority of the heat is in the membrane and the seeds so I deseed them first too but generally these are pretty mild and a good all rounder.
Be carefull of the really thin small thai chillis they are super hot,and can ruin a dish or a base sauce, guess it all depends how hot you like it.