Quote from: Peripatetic Phil on June 29, 2024, 06:34 PM

• Ginger-chili chutney, for serving (optional)

I recently found that our local Tesco stocks Mrs Balls mango chutney. It became a firm favourite when I used to cook Bobotie for the kids many years ago as it is a South African product that was mentioned in a lot of the recipes by name. It comes in a tall bottle and pours well straight from the fridge.
It is the mango chutney I tend to go for these days.
My digestive system no longer tolerates chilli chutneys and pickles unfortunately.

https://www.ft.com/content/2165379e-b4b2-11e5-8358-9a82b43f6b2f#slide0

A 2016 article from the FT on the problems facing the Indian restaurant industry. Overheads up and profit down.
Couple of interesting facts in the article, including the largest seller of curries was (in 2016) Wetherspoons, and one restauranteur claiming the curries from M&S are superior to most curry houses.
We very rarely buy an Indian take away now, I tend to make the more traditional curries and what we don't eat immediately goes into the freezer. We will then pull out two or three curries and have them for dinner later on.
For dinner tonight we have a lamb kofta curry and a green chicken curry defrosting in the fridge. A dahl and some stir fried spinach should make for a good meal.
T63

Nothing new to you guys here searching for the Holy Grail of BIR Curries, but Dean Edward's gives his view in this artice


https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/amp/entry/this-is-the-surprising-secret-behind-making-an-authentic-indian-curry-at-home_uk_66696aa2e4b01bc0ceedda58/

What a base gravy is, and how to prepare it

Chef Dean Edwards, a self-proclaimed "CEO of Fakeaway Recipes" and previous contestant on Masterchef, posted on his TikTok to explain the importance of a base gravy and how to prepare it.
Edwards said: "Restaurants use a base gravy, which adds an incredible amount of flavour."
According to Edwards, this is the starting point in Indian restaurants and the key to making your curries at home taste more authentic and flavourful,

The ingredients are:
50g ghee or oil
5 large onions sliced
4 carrots peeled and diced
1 large red pepper deseeded and diced
2 tbsp. garlic and ginger paste
1 heaped tbsp. garam masala
1 heaped tsp. turmeric
1 tsp. paprika
1 x 400g tin plum tomatoes
1 tbsp. tomato puree
It takes around an hour all in to prepare but it makes 5 portions, which can be refrigerated for three days or a massive four weeks in the freezer.
This base gravy is a foundation to build any curry on and the full recipe can be found on the Dean Edwards website.

This is my version of a great Madhur Jaffrey dish from her "Curry Easy" cookbook.
The Queen of spice uses a mix of paprika and cayenne to get the colour and heat into the recipe, I found two tablespoons of Kashmiri chilli powder gives the right result for us. Madhur also uses 4 cups (or a litre) of water in the dish, I find this is way too much and I end up boiling it down to reduce to our preferred consistency, I always use home made bone broth in my recipes in place of water; it provides additional depth of flavour. Also MJ calls for 1.5 teaspoons of salt, this can be too much so I add 1 teaspoon at the start and season to taste at the end.

Rajasthani Red Meat

Ingredients
4 tablespoons ghee
Two 3-inch cinnamon sticks
6 whole cloves
10 cardamom pods, bruised
1 large red onion, peeled and finely chopped
2 teaspoons very finely grated peeled fresh ginger
4 garlic cloves, peeled and finely grated
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1kg stewing lamb, preferably from the shoulder, trimmed of fat and sinew
1 teaspoons salt, or to taste
2 tablespoons Kashmiri chilli powder
500ml stock or water (I use bone broth, homemade)
3 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander

Method
Put the ghee into a large, heavy pan and set over medium-high heat. When hot, put in the cinnamon sticks, cloves, and cardamom. Let the spices sizzle for a few seconds.

Put in the onions. Stir and fry until they turn a reddish brown. Add the ginger, garlic, and coriander. Stir for a minute.

Add the lamb, salt, and Kashmiri chilli. Stir the lamb around for 3–4 minutes. Now add the stock or water and bring to a boil.

Cover, turn heat to low, and simmer about 60 minutes or until the meat is tender. Add more stock/water if required.

Once the meat is soft, taste for seasoning and sprinkle the coriander over the top before serving.

Aktar on line are offering a nice Tandoori box deal for the bank holiday weekend at £80. I toyed with ordering one for the BBQ but you have to get in early to reserve one and then if the weather is bad it spoils it.

So if I find the time I may try and replicate the dishes for when the family are round...weather permitting.

https://aktarathome.co.uk/order-online/?mc_cid=adbc4dc01f&mc_eid=57ed0f0860#

THE MENU

Enjoy a selection of Aktar's signature Tandoori style marinated meats; perfect for a family BBQ this summer.

AFGHANI LAMB (D)
Wiltshire lamb cutlets in a sweet date & sultana marinade, spiced with toasted black cumin, green and black cardamom

MAAS KE SOOLEY
Fillets of beef marinated in raw papaya, garlic, smoked ghee, Kashmiri chilli, black cardamom & nutmeg

ADRAKI MURGH (D)
Cotswold white drumsticks marinated in Kashmiri chilli, fresh and dry ginger, toasted cumin & coriander

TULSI MURGH (D)
Chicken thigh in an herby marinade of fresh basil, coriander, fenugreek & green chilli

ACHARI MURGH (D)
Chicken wings marinated in yoghurt, North indian pickling spices, Kashmiri chilli & garam masala


SERVED WITH

SAMOSAS (G)(V)
16 large Punjabi Potato & Pea Samosas

NAAN (G)(V)
Unleavened flatbread cooked in a tandoor

CHUTNEY (D)(V)
Mint raitha

Quote from: Peripatetic Phil on March 25, 2024, 07:49 PM
Would you do that even for something as commonplace as (e.g.,) "a pint of milk", T63 ?  And if so, would you approximate it as [570 ml], or be as exact as you can [568.26125 ml] ?

No I wouldn't for a pint. Neither would I convert an inch of root ginger into CM. Both of those measures are still commonly used in the U.K.
Weights I would convert into metric and cup quantities I would convert into ml etc.

I must admit that when I copy a recipe that is not metric into Pages, I usually convert everything into metric as I go, though there are a few exceptions.
This way when I share a recipe with friends and family it saves them the trouble of converting it themselves.

I saw this article on Apple News and thought it may be of interest to some of those here. Indian with no chilli or potatoes? Makes you think.

Since it opened in 2015, Nirmal's has been trying to expand what Seattleites imagine when they think of "Indian food." Every two months the Pioneer Square restaurant rotates its menu to highlight a different Indian state, and in that process owner Oliver Bangera winds up doing a fair amount of research into not just the composition of dishes, but the history behind them. For instance, the Kashmiri dish rogan josh has no onion or garlic because it was served to the king of Kashmir, who as a Kashmiri Brahman did not eat onion or garlic, Bangera says. So much of Indian cuisine contains lineages like that, stretching back through the country's millennia-long history.

On Monday, March 18, Nirmal's will make its first attempt at excavating some of that history with Pangat, a dinner that features dishes that would have been eaten 1,000 years ago, or at least the restaurant's best attempt at replicating them.

To achieve this, Bangera worked with culinary historian Andrea Gutiérrez, a professor at the University of Austin, who spent hours translating recipes in Sanskrit and other old languages into recipes Nirmal's team could use. Sometimes, Bangera says, this meant turning something that was more like a "description of a dish" into a recipe; it also meant converting whatever units of measurement the 11th-century chefs were using into the metric system.

Bangera tells Eater Seattle that he wasn't sure if the dining public would share his interest in history, but the response was overwhelming — 100 tickets to Pangat sold out in a day, prompting Nirmal's to release 20 more tickets, which also got snapped up. "I was floored," the owner says.

Diners will be encountering an unfamiliar version of Indian food, one that predates contact with the Americas and therefore doesn't have a lot of ingredients that are now central to the cuisine. "One thousand years ago we did not have chilies in India. And we didn't have potatoes in India. We didn't have tomatoes in India. No cauliflower, no cabbage, no carrots, no peas, no peanuts. No cashew nuts," Bangera says. "None of those existed 1,000 years ago [in India]. Imagine Indian food without chiles!" Samosas, which today are often filled with vegetables like potatoes and peas, "were strictly a meat dish" in the 11th century, he says.

"There's this illusion today that so much Indian food is vegetarian," Gutiérrez tells Eater Seattle. In fact, a lot of the food at the time was marinated in yogurt and fried in ghee; because of this, Pangat will not be able to accomadate vegans. There will be a lot of vegetables used for this meal, however, like eggplant, pumpkin, unripe mango, and unripe jackfruit, all of which are native to India. Cumin, coriander, and long pepper — fruitier than its cousin black pepper — will provide spice.

Gutiérrez says that in India, it's relatively common for high-end restaurants to do "popular renditions" of historical dishes. "But nobody who prepares that stuff is actually a historian," she says. "They're just kind of making it up as they go along." It's not possible to completely replicate the food that would have been eaten 1,000 years ago, especially on an entirely different continent where the vegetables will inevitably taste different, but Nirmal's is making a good-faith effort, she says.

Bangera plans to continue putting on events that highlight historical dishes. He'd love to do a "palace dinner" based on what would have been eaten by Indian royalty, or a dinner focusing on what soldiers on military campaigns would have eaten, or what an Ayurvedic diet would have looked like in the 11th century. Nirmal's will also reproduce this dinner when Gutiérrez's book comes out in a couple of years.
"The goal is not to stop here but to keep exploring," Bangera says.

By Harry Cheadle | March 5, 2024 3:43 pm

This guy knowingly ate a curry with nuts in despite having a nut allergy. He had previously tolerated the nuts but apparently died after one mouthful.

Sad that this guy passed away but I am pleased the restaurant is not facing prosecution as they correctly advised the dish was prepared with nuts.

I wonder how may dishes in a restaurant could inadvertently contain nuts and have a similar result


https://metro.co.uk/2024/03/07/man-27-died-eating-a-single-mouthful-takeaway-chicken-curry-20423864/amp/

Seeing the renewed interest in the Chicken Bhuna thread (Let's talk curry) I thought I would add a couple of recipes I have used at home. The first is adapted from a Times of India recipe. This is the sort of quick after work curry I would make for me and the wife having done most of the cooking a day or two before and then just reheating and adding the final touches before serving.

The second recipe is a bit more involved and comes from Swasthi's recipes
https://www.indianhealthyrecipes.com/
This has more depth of flavour and I would usually make this as part of a curry fest for friends and family.

Chicken Bhuna adapted from a recipe at Times of India

Ingredients
1 kilogram bone in skinless chicken pieces, excess fat removed. (I use thighs)
Fine sea salt
Ground black pepper
1 tablespoon vinegar (I use white wine vinegar)
1 tablespoon turmeric
2 tablespoon ginger paste
2 tablespoon garlic paste
4 tablespoon ghee
1/2 tablespoon cumin seeds
4 large red onions finely chopped
4 medium tomatoes, puréed 

1/2 tablespoon ground Kashmiri chilli powder

1/2 tablespoon ground coriander
1/2 tablespoon amchoor (ground dried mango)
8 tablespoons thick natural yoghurt.
1/2 tablespoon garam masala 

A handful of coriander leaves, roughly chopped

2 tablespoon fresh cream

Method
Prepare the marinade. Place chicken pieces into a bowl and add 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper, vinegar, 1/2 tbsp turmeric, half the ginger paste and half of the garlic paste. Coat the chicken and marinate for as long as possible in the fridge – at least an hour or preferably overnight.

Remove the chicken from the fridge one hour before starting to cook.



Put ghee in a pot over medium heat. When hot and shimmering add the cumin seeds and let them splutter for a few seconds. Add the finely chopped onions and sauté them for 5 minutes. Once the onions are translucent, add the remaining ginger and garlic pastes. Mix well and sauté for a few more minutes until the raw aroma is cooked out.



Add the puréed tomatoes to the pot, along with the remaining turmeric, red chilli powder, coriander powder and amchoor. Add salt and ground black pepper to taste and stir, bring to a simmer then cover and allow it to cook for five minutes. Remove the lid, stir then allow it to simmer uncovered until the ghee separates.


Now put in 1 tablespoon of the yogurt and stir for about 30 seconds until yogurt is well blended. Add the remaining yogurt, a tablespoon at a time in the same way. Once all the yoghurt is mixed in continue to stir for another 3-4 minutes.



Add the marinated chicken pieces to the pan and and mix to coat them well. Cook for 5 minutes over a high heat stirring occasionally to prevent the sauce from sticking. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer until the chicken is tender, about 30 - 40 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add water as required to obtain the desired consistency, but consider that Bhuna chicken should invariably be served in a thick sauce.



Once the chicken is cooked stir in the garam masala and  garnish with chopped coriander leaves and swirls of fresh cream. Check the seasoning and serve immediately.

Chicken Bhuna Masala from Swasthi's Recipes

Ingredients
1 kg chicken breast or boneless thighs, cubed
1 tablespoon ghee
2 dried red chillies
1 bay leaf
2 black cardamoms
4 green cardamoms
4 cloves
2 inch stick of cinnamon

Ground Spice Mix
¼ teaspoon ground turmeric
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
2 teaspoons Kashmiri Red chilli powder
2 teaspoon garam masala
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground fennel

Marinade
½ teaspoon fine sea salt
½ tablespoon ginger garlic paste
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Bhuna Masala
4 tablespoons oil
2 medium onions, chopped
1 to 2 green chillies, slit
1 tablespoon ginger garlic paste
1 medium tomato deseeded and chopped or one small tin
1 teaspoon fine sea salt, or to taste
8 tablespoons greek yoghurt
1½ tablespoons dried fenugreek leaves, crushed
Handful finely chopped coriander leaves to garnish

Method
Mix together all the ground spices – red chilli powder, turmeric, garam masala, coriander, cumin, black pepper & fennel.
Place chicken in a lidded container. Sprinkle ½ teaspoon of fine sea salt,  ½ tablespoon of ginger garlic paste and half of the mixed ground spices. Pour over the lemon juice, mix to combine then cover and refrigerate for at least two hours or overnight.

Remove the chicken from the fridge one hour before starting to cook.

Heat oil in a wok or pan over medium heat.
Add onions and green chillies. Sauté for 6 to 7 minutes and then reduce heat to medium low until onions turn golden brown but not burnt.
Add ginger garlic paste and sauté until the raw smell has gone.
Stir in the remaining half of the ground spices and continue to sauté until the smell of the raw spices has gone.

Stir in the tomatoes and salt. Cook until the mix reduces and the oil starts to form around the edge. Now put in 1 tablespoon of the yogurt and stir and fry for about 30 seconds until yogurt is well blended. Add the remaining yogurt, a tablespoon at a time in the same way. Stir and fry for another 3-4 minutes until the yoghurt cooks down and the masala starts to thicken.

As the masala cooks, in another pan, heat 1 tablespoon ghee. Add the red chilies and let them fry for 30 to 40 seconds.

Add all the remaining whole spices – bay leaf, cardamoms, cloves and cinnamon stick, sauté until the cardamoms and cloves swell and the spices release their aroma.

Add the chicken and all the marinade ingredients and fry on a medium high heat for 2 to 3 mins and then reduce the heat for a further 3 minutes until the chicken has coloured. 

Add the chicken and 2 tablespoons of the chopped coriander leaves to the masala and continue to sauté for 2 to 3 minutes.

Cover and cook on a low heat, until the chicken is fully cooked through, add a splash of hot water if the masala starts to stick to the bottom of the pan, pouring it in at the side and not over the chicken.

Taste and adjust the seasoning. Sprinkle in the crushed kasuri methi and mix well, then garnish with the remaining chopped coriander leaves.