Thanks CH - will do tomorrow 

Happy and safe New Year to all, coming up to NY in 30 mins hereabouts. Real treat for ex pats tonight on TV, back-to-back Edinburgh Tattoo and Last Night at the Proms rebroadcasts. Time to pull up a plate of pickled onions, Wensleydale Cheese, Sam Smith's Nut Brown Ale and unashamedly have a good wallow  ;D

Curry day tomorrow for the rellies coming round, doing prep now while I'm watching. Cheers to all.

Edit: having an ale gargle now to clear the tonsils so I can join in with "Jerusalem", coming up. 

I've made a couple of good aloo gobi to recipes on the web, from Manjula's Kitchen etc but often I get the problem that whilst the potato is done to perfection the cauliflower cooks to a mush, or conversely if the caulifower is lovely firm/tender the potatoes are still crunchy in the middle. Increasing the size of the cauli pieces helps to a degree but not much.

I'm wondering if parboiling the spud pieces might help? I realise there's probably a trick because all the recipes add the potatoes and the cauli pieces raw - at the same time - and cook for around 20 mins.

I try to get waxy type potatoes and good fresh firm cauli which are in season here right now. However I like nice spud pieces, not little cubes - and would like to get the results that are pictured in the recipes - any tips?

I don't smoke personally (used to smoke Embassy years ago which dates me  ;D) but the stepdaughter is a bit broke at the moment so I bought a couple of packets for her being Christmas etc.

I thought the UK members might be interested in seeing the new uniform packaging which has just come in here in Aus. and which may be on the way to the Sceptred Isle in the nearish future. Note the only identifier is the plain text area at the bottom, these are John Players Superkings Blue. Every single pack has to look exactly like this now - with a fair few scary pictures to accompany. I don't know how they get on with my old favourites like Camels and Gauloises - maybe they don't import them any more?

So far it's probably not caused a lot of adults to give up, but the idea is to remove the "cool" factor away from the kids and of course to "marginalise" existing smokers socially. Time will tell, hey.

Lucky man, I should have joined you but a bit far. Hope you don't mind me turning this into a "continuing" thread  - I had all sorts planned for Xmas dinner including Parathas, Butter Chicken, Chole (chickpeas) etc but was facing a general revolt and uprising 

So the final dinner Consisted of Prawn Cocktails with Avocado, Eggs Mimosa, Coca Cola chicken wings, garlic bread - but I did manage to sneak in one treat from the Sub Continent - Cardmom flavoured Halava with custard, which received rave reviews. All up we consumed enough butter yesterday to keep the local Emergency Department busy for a month.

Hereabouts it's around 30? so not really roast turkey territory although some families persevere.

Hope everybody had a safe and not too inebriate day and feeling ok this morning.

With nearly half the population of Fiji being Indian from various regions they still have a strong Indian based cuisine. Quite a few have migrated on to Australia - my last GP was from Fiji and was Indian to his bootstraps as far as I could see,  but so far I've been unable to find a specific Fijian style restaurant here.

I was in an Asian shop yesterday and found a big pack of Fijian Curry Powder - it smells bloody divine, quite heavy on the Haldi by the looks of it. For starters I was thinking of doing a regular BIR chicken Madras or something, but use the Fijian mix as the dry mix and see how that goes.

In the meantime do any of our expat or Aussie members know about Fijian curries and methods, or have lived there? I'd guess they would go fairly heavy on the coconut?

Wow, incredible news. When are you going to open a branch on the East Coast?  ;D
When you've had some time to get away from the stove and try the opposition's curry varieties it will be fascinating to get a report on the main differences between BIR as practiced at your place and the AIR variations currently available.

I've recently moved to Taree NSW and there are a couple of Indians in town but I haven't had a chance to suss them out yet to get some TAs and do a "side by side" with my current efforts, so it will be interesting to hear reports from a professional on the ground.

Bump: thanks for this thread, Solar.



I'm out of garabhi so decided to do the Zaal. The only other "true" BIR base I've done so far was the C2go one.

( Off topic but is that right, that Julian is selling up due to ill health? Anyone know how the big fella is? Bit of a shock. )

No veg ghee so I used Rice Bran Oil which is very "clean" and neutral and in Aus we get heaps of it here from Thailand at around GBP 3 a litre.

I used my own dry mix which is basically  C2go plus a wee bit of grated nutmeg and some all purpose seasoning powder which I guess has some MSG maybe.

With the Akhni stock I gave the Cardmom a bit of a whack in the mortar and pestle to crack the husks, and I snuck in a couple of Black Cardmom as well as I love that stuff  .

I've always been a bit suss about the heat of my current supposedly Kashmiri Chilli powder and the base has come out a bit hot, but no worries, I'll adjust when cooking batches.

Tomorrow I'll do something chickeny and hot  ;D

Hopefully this will play outside of Australia, interesting episode about some local Indian Restaurant cooking.

http://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/program/267/Food-Safari?utm_source=Featured-Programs

- SBS TV is our "ethnic" channel and usually does culturally authentic content.

I checked out one at random in Edison http://www.delhigardenrestaurant.com/#/main-courses-menu and it looks very similar to the Aussie menus and presumably BIR. Lots of familiar names like sagwala etc. Can't complain about the prices, almost half what I'd pay up the street here