Sadly, I lost my last chillie plant last winter - gave me 5 good years though - don't know if that is normal or not.
It was one of  5 different chillie plants I bought off a newspaper offer (Telegraph) - but the only one that survived after the 1st year.  My meddling wife mixed up the labels when I was re-potting them, so I don't know the name of my last survivor - it gave me small size 10mm to 20mm length red chilles - which have a nice little kick to them.

Did anyone else buy this 5 plant set from the newspaper offer @ 5 / 6 years ago and know the names of the chilli plants?  Maybe I could idnetify what I have from that if anyone still has the details?

Mainly, i oven dried them at 60 deg C for 6 hours - but some I froze.

My thoughts are I would like to try and grow my survivor chillie from the frozen seed I have .

Anyone have any ideas on whether this would be successful?

I am more a fan of 'real asian' cuisine I suppose than what has come to pass as 'bir' curry stuff - and to me, the Hilal epitomises everything I don't like about 'bir' - i.e. the Indian meals adjusted to what is thought to be the British palate taste.  I visited the Hilal 1st time round in the early 70s and was very underimpressed compared to other Indian restaurants around even at that time - e.g the Taj in Altrincham was vastly superior in the taste and quality of its meals. The Taj no longer around sadly - it  was run by an ex Gurkha.
I made the mistake of trying the Hilal again in @ 2005 - nothing had changed re my opinion of the meals.

Try Essence in Broadheath, or the Ganges (was Curry Cottage) at Woodheys, West Timperley or Swadesh - Bowdon or Seven Spices, Cheadle or Jai Kathmandu Northenden, Mughli Rusholme, Mughli - Knutsford - all offer far superior cuisine / taste experience than the Hilal - but that is just my own taste buds at work.

Another one to avoid in Timperley is the Mhariam - just doesn't cut it for me at all compared to many others which are well worth the visit.  One visit to the Mhariam - which will be the last.

Also made the mistake recently in trying the once excellent Dilli in Altrincham.  Expensive bland rubbish.  It closed down a week later which didn't surprise me.  When Dilli 1st opened 10 years ago it was excellent - some incredible regional dishes on offer - but soon the variations available reduced and the quality of taste dropped - after 4 visits in 2 years I stopped going to the Dilli.

One of the best Indian (Nepalese actually) restaurants in the Greater Manchester area is without doubt the Jai Kathmandu Palatine Road, Northenden. 

I would also highly recommend the Swadesh in Bowdon and the Seven Spices , Cheadle Hulme (the latter guys ran the Gaylord in Spring Gardens, M/Cr).

Not overly hot Kylie - remember - these are quite small home grown (UK) 1/2" chillies that are oven dried when harvested.  The marinade gives a nice spicy zing to the chicken.  I put 25 of my chillies in the last one and whilst my daughter & husband & granddaughter liked it (me too!) - my wife thought it was bit on the 'hot' side for her - so it's back down to 20 on the next one

I always remove the top tract now from prawns - having suffered a bout of severe food poisoning within 10 minutes of eating a prawn cocktail many years ago.  Once bitten !!!  Shellfish seem to be my Achilles heel - went down with gastro-enteritis after eating local clams / mussels in Rye 2 years ago

Here is my uprated version of the Ravi tikka marinade - got one on the go right now for tonight

I amended to :-

1 Cup plain yoghurt,
1 large green fresh chillie,
20 small (1/2?) dried homegrown chillies
about a golfball size of grated green ginger,
3 large cloves of garlic,
1 tablespoon of salt,
1 teaspoon black cummin,
1 teaspoon red chilli powder,
1 and half teaspoons of garam massala,
a good slug of vinegar,
2 tablespoons of olive oil,

no colouring agent

Food process and/or beat until really smooth.
This should make about 1/4 pint of marinade - use as a coating on slashed chicken.
I use this on 4x large chicken breasts (cut into cubes for a skewer kebab style) & 4x wings

BBQ on a charcoal bbq.

I have seen and ordered / eaten in a couple of Indian restaurants (ok one is Nepalese) a dish called Kulchi Chicken which is a whole chicken - has to be ordered 24 hours in advance - which is cooked with Keema mince inside, whole eggs, spiced coating / sauce etc.  Brilliant dish

interesting prog by Blumenthal on the tv ages ago where he was trying to emulate indian street butter chicken dish via making a chicken tikka first.

he proved via an MRI scan that the use of yogurt in the marinade carries the marinade further into the chicken than not using yogurt.  clever stuff

I have one plant left from 5 I started with and find for overwintering - you have to have them in a warmish environment.  Not pruned at all - repot in early summer & keep watering with phosphate type food in water all year.  It even flowered in the warm heated garden room this winter & I pollinated with a kiddies paintbrush with the absence of any insect life about - chillies forming too after this pollination

tesco ? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm  pure 'horse' cream ?