Please show us your Cassia bark.  It is clearly releasing a lot more colour than mine, and I presume Santa's. There would be very little colour coming from the other spices.

I'd looked into building a tandoor but then I found the steel one.  Do some research because not all ceramic pots are suitable.  There are some good designs and there are some terrible ones.  There is a pottery / ceramics place over here in southern Sydney where you can buy hand thrown ceramic tandoor inserts.  You then build the outer casing to suite your needs.

http://somethingatmarys.com/indian-tandoor-oven-sale/

How did you get 16 fl Oz of water to boil down to only 7 fl Oz in 1 hour in a saucepan with the lid on?  I used the smallest pot with lid I have as I used only 300 ml to start with for half qty. I'll admit now that my akhni stock was not as concentrated or dark in colour as your photograph shows.  I don't understand how you got that with the ingredients and instructions provided.  Where did the colour come from?

I agree Phil. It actually looks to be a pretty good dish. I was just surprised when he dropped the base gravy in having already read the ingredient list.  I doubt very much that I'll be making his version of gravy and being a balti, I'd say MDB's or Misty Ricardo's would be fine (or any for that matter).

So you tried to emulate the smoke filled kitchen aspect too. I admire your dedication to detail.

I really liked the look of the texture to Al's naan. He ignored replying to inquiries about it.

OK, I think I see what's happening here.  Al has gone over every base gravy recipe he could find and decided to use everything ever used all in one go.  He clearly doesn't want to leave out the secret ingredient, so just put everything in.  I think he's confused sweetened condensed milk with Carnation evaporated milk and he forgot, or missed, the one which uses Asian white radish.

No wonder he cops so much flack about base gravy in the comments on the Balti video. He also takes a beating on the smoke as well. Best laugh for a while.

I'm not understanding what you're asking of me Rob. I must've missed something.

Some photos of the Tikka. I made the Bhuna Besan and Kashmiri Chilli paste.  The Kashmiri chilli in India must be a lot more red than over here.  Mine were a bit old and I've used all of my own home grown ones.  I cheated and used a bit of Tandoor food colour.  I followed CT's stage 1 marination and added a touch of mint to the recipe (it was missing and I like it).  Delicious juicy tandoor Tikka but I will say that it is "very Indian" spicy and flavour.

My old Pakistani steel tandoor is in need of a new base.  It is obviously very low grade carbon steel and with the last few years of high rain and humidity it has rusted out.

Well that is almost * exactly the same as the 2 cook from scratch baltis already tried, being Rishton and Shababs.

1/2 tsp of paprika, turmeric and chilli powder, (plus black pepper as a named flavour).
A pinch of methi, garam masala and cumin.
Fresh ingredients cut small, cooked fast from raw. Nothing new and apparently this is the real Birmingham Balti. (almost *)

* almost
Notable absence:  Cassia bark, carrot.
Wait a minute! Not listed in the ingredients list,  Base Gravy.   may contain cassia and carrot.

LOL.    Check out 8.30 when poor old mate ducks off camera to get a breath of fresh air.  The 3 ring gas burner balti has turned Al's Kitchen into a hot smoker. 

Quote from: Lahore Bob on August 29, 2022, 09:01 AM

My money would be on it going wrong when making the akhni stock.

Rob       

Boiling some whole spices in a pan of water (and I used a lid)?    This can't be taken seriously and is about as likely a source of error as using 50 g or 60 g of Cassia Bark instead of the optimal 55 g would be.  Also, I can assure that I didn't make any mistakes in my reductions for half quantities, other than intentionally.  Not that it would matter anyway since any initial error would end up being spread out over 8 to 10 Baltis (or curries) or in my case 4 or 5 for half quantity.

So Phil, I'm assuming you have bought a pack of Cassia Bark (Ingredients: cinnamomum spp) that is labelled Cinnamon, as did I. I presume you intend to try this Balti gravy and dish.

It's a shame we still have only 4 members who have cooked it.  We need to go to the tie breaker round.

Things that could "go wrong"!!

I made 50% quantity and if anything I rounded spicing up.  This would not account for deficiency in spice flavour.

Ingredients:
Vegetable oil – not olive oil  I used 2 TBSP (1/2 Chef spoon) of vegetable oil
1 kg onion, roughly chopped I used a weighed 500 grams
1 tsp salt  1/2 tsp used
small pinch Ajwain seeds a few grains of Ajwain used
1/2 green and 1/2 red pepper, chopped 1/4 of each used
125g fresh carrot, roughly chopped approx 60 g used
Whole Spices:
Weigh 55g pieces of cassia bark (I know it sounds a lot but trust me...) 27.5 grams used. Broken up pieces from bottom of container
5 cloves 3 cloves used
10 green cardamom pods pierced 5 used
3 star anise 1.5 used
5 tej patta (Indian bay leaves) dried DON'T use normal bay leaves – omit instead size is a non critical issue here. I used 3 medium (80 cm)

Spice Mix:
2 tsp chilli powder (optional) being optional means non critical but I used 1 tsp of hot Indian Paprika (ie: KRCP)
2.5 tsp coriander powder 1.5 tsp
1.5 tsp cumin powder 1 level tsp
3 tsp turmeric powder 1.5 tsp
2.5 tsp curry powder This could have affect.  I used 1.5 tsp of Mother's Recipe Mild Curry Powder
a good pinch kasuri methi (dried Fenugreek Leaves)  I used enough
2 tsp garam masala powder This could have affect. I used a generic proprietary brand 1 tsp
Large handful fresh coriander 1/2 cup of chopped used
30g peeled fresh garlic 3 large cloves. Easily 15 grams
30g peeled fresh ginger 15 grams fresh used
250g of chopped tomatoes I used 1/2 can of premium chopped tomatoes w/ additional paste concentrate

I understand some people will insist that my mistake was making 1/2 quantity.  This is not the case with Base Gravy which I have found to be easily and successfully scaled to any quantity desired and if only performing a 1 step halving or doubling is perfectly acceptable.

Having made this base as specified and then following up with the Chicken Balti (pretty simple dish to cook), where did it go wrong?