Quote from: Bengali Bob on October 18, 2013, 09:06 PM

Quote from: fried on October 15, 2013, 06:29 PM
I've heard people talk in hushed whispers about the Birmingham Baltis but unfortunatly missed the boat on that. I find it hard to understand the exact difference in taste between Balti and standard BIR.

It is very difficult to describe the difference between top end BIR and Balti.  Both amazing in their own right.  But the delicate balti flavours dance and sparkle so much. So a BIR Chicken madras could be a rumba, whereas a Balti chicken madras, would be a cha cha.  But accordingly a BIR phal would be a tango, and there is not really a balti equivalent.

Rob     

Fantastic explanation, not sure I'm any the wiser. ;D

I've made a few of these Hariyali dishes, and I recommend holding back some of the herbs, and spinach (if it's young enough) and adding at the end. This will make the green a bit less grey.

Still tastes excellent either way.

I froze a portion of this that I made for a family do and nobody touched it, not suprising really as we'd cooked twice as much as usual, and bought starters from the Sri Lanki's. Anyway I defrosted it and ate it the other week, it was delicious, much better than I remember it tasting originally. I know this is common with a lot of food, but this was something else.

Quote from: Secret Santa on October 17, 2013, 05:09 PM

Quote from: fried on October 17, 2013, 04:42 PMI now add a kilo of chicken wings to it for that old-skool taste.

That's exactly what I'm going to do on my next base. Don't know why I haven't done it before.

I highly recommend it, probably not suited to subtle curries though.

I've often wondered why meat isn't added to base recipes, since plenty of reports from old BIRs mention that the meat would have first been pre-cooked like this.

The family are always gettting me to make Happychris' staff curry which has that traditional taste, so trying for the best of both worlds.

    1. Do you always cooks the same base, have you settled on a base that you think gives you the best results? If so, which one?

  Luckily I started with CT's which I've settled on. I now add a kilo of chicken wings to it for that old-skool taste.

    2. Do you fry onions before boiling?

    No, the base is sweet enough without frying.

    3. Do you filter out the fibrous bits after blitzing? If you have done both (filtering and non-filtering), do you think it makes any difference to the end result?

    I stopped filtering for a long time as it was very time consuming, since I started adding chicken to the base I restarted just to get out the bits of bone that I didn't spot before blending.

    4. Do you re-boil/simmer after blitzing? Do this make any difference?

    Yes, it's alwayus nice to see the red oil dancing on the surface. NIce to check the consistancy too.

    5. Do you skim off the froth if you simmer? Does this make any difference?

    Sometimes, not convinced it makes that much difference.

I have to confess that my only experiment with Balti cooking (one of my first 'real' curry cooking experiences in fact) was using the GM from PChapman's Balti curry cookbook. I don't know if my measurements were skewiff but the resulting curries were really heavy on the cloves.

I don't use cloves in my normal GM (zaal) and only use them in Pilau rice or as whole spices when making more traditional fare.

Any thoughts on there inclusion? I'm intrigued by Balti cooking, as I originally come from the curry wonderland of Hertfordshire where a Balti was exactly the same as any other curry.

I've heard people talk in hushed whispers about the Birmingham Baltis but unfortunatly missed the boat on that. I find it hard to understand the exact difference in taste between Balti and standard BIR.

Thanks for the reply Bob, I'll need some time to digest all the info.

I always love the look of your curries. Fantasic colour, but there always looks like so much oil.

I'm really interested in the reasons for this. Are you adding spiced oil at the end? are you filtering off the oil? Or do you just like oil?

Absolutely no criticism, I just happened to be looking at the photos on the front page and mine always come out looking exactly like Garp's Garlic chilli chicken with a few flecks of oil.

Which base do you use?

Admin was trying something a while ago. I use adblock on Firefox same as Phil, so not noticed anything.

That  :rolls eyes: icon really rubs me up the wrong way can we get rid of it?

A couple of times when I've had only mince meat in the freezer I've made it into small balls (2cm diameter) and cooked them as in a standard curry. Very nice, just don't turn them too often or they'll break up.

The last time I mistakenly added frozen dill instead of coriander, this may be my only addition to th world of curry cooking. Not bad at all.