Ah, that explains a lot!

I don't usually reclaim any oil, I like to leave it in. Just use a lot less at the curry cooking stage (about 1 - 2 tbsps) and after about 5 minutes cooking the oil will start to separate which is a good indicator that the curry is done.

The Saffron base cooking sounds like great fun. I look forward to reading your thoughts on it. Did you learn anything that we didn't already know?

Ryvita and chillies for lunch!

Chicken Pitta pockets is a regular meal, although we usually use Nandos hot marinade and sauce, or a souvlaki recipe. I usually grill a few hot chillies with the chicken and put them in the pitta breads. They always go down well. I'll have to give the tikka ones a go soon they sound good.

The light cheese and chilli crackers sound real good. That's tomorrow lunch sorted! I also see your point with the madras. I guess you could cook one with no oil at all, just boiled veg, spices, chillies and chilli powder. I bet fresh tomatoes could be used instead of puree too. The chicken is boiled too to hardly any fat there either. I'm sure it wouldn't be anywhere near as nice as a 'proper' oily madras but for a healthy lunchtime snack it would be tough to beat. I'll have a go later in the week and see how it turns out.

I am addicted to green chillies - there I said it. I add them into almost everything I eat from lasagne to chicken fried rice. I don't want to get over my addiction I want to feed it, but at the same time too many curries has taken it's toll on the waistband and I'm trying to shed a few pounds.

I'm looking for some inspiration for healthy lunchtime snacks that include green chillies. I have tried chilli and cheese on toast as suggested on this forum, and chilli and baked beans on toast and they are both lovely. I also add a couple of green chillies to pot noodles which really fire them up. After that I'm pretty much clean out of ideas.

Any help or ideas would be very welcome.

There is a sticky post where a guy puts down each of his 27 experiments including quantities. They seem to get progressively better.

Frozen chopped coriander is a great idea. I always buy a big bunch, use about 10% of it, then the rest ends up going mouldy. I'll defiantly be freezing it in future.

the only bits I make sure I have prepared and ready is the passata and spices. Once the garlic and ginger is in the hot oil and starting to brown it can be a disaster if you dont have the next bits ready to just drop straight in.

It's also very important to have a wife close by to clean the cooker as soon as you have finished cooking  ;D

Perhaps melting isn't exactly the right word, but the onion really softens over the 4 hours. The potato doesn't break down in the same way, but you wont notice if they are thin enough.

Quote from: Cory Ander on September 28, 2009, 04:55 PM
But I'll add it (to the bottom) of my list (for my next life) 

Right under trying potatoes in onion bhajis then 

The trick is to get it really thin so the pieces are quite flexible. When you moult and fry your bhajis you wont even know they are in there, but the overall bhaji will (IMO) taste better.

It sounds like you have a pretty high bar set now for bhajis. Whether you think the potato improves the bhaji or not, at least you will be able to cross it off you perfect BIR list.