Cool, I will definately try this, my local does a Lamb Khalia and it is awesome

Yes lemon juice

For those of you that frequently use one BIR I would just let them know how often you are in and strongly suggest that will change if you dont get your way.

I would not have taken no for an answer in my local BIR!

BIR's arent guilty of anything unless they actually say their dishes are suitable for vegetarians.

Bombay aloo - potato curry, where does it say in the menu 'suitable for vegetarians' ?

It is fairly shocking I must agree, all those people asking for veggie curries and all the time eating chicken, well out of order!!

I wonder how widespread this practice is? My gut feeling tells me very, the BIR is not one to waste good stock like this!

Not that I know of (haven't seen any in the 2 kitchens I have been in), I'm surprised at this, presumably its quite a high cost ingredient compared to a normal onion

The diference being you now use this pureed sauce for any balti's, not just the one you have pre cooked the meat for.

Here you go:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=11105&item=8300503969&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW


Or alternatively I see there are some going for ?70 on amazon  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/detail/offer-listing/-/1857932218/used/ref=sdp_usedb/202-2413053-2691028

This is taken from the book '100 Best Balti Curries (Authentic dishes from the Baltihouses)', which by the way is very interesting book, I might revisit some of these recipes now I have discovered the secret of leaving a curry before eating it? ?. I think its out of print now but it regularly crops up on ebay now and then.

Anyway, this book uses the correct formula of first making up a base balti sauce that is used in almost all the recipes, it gives 2 variants everday and rolls royce (Id want the rolls royce everyday but thats another matter? ;D). These 2 base sauces dont differ greatly from what we know, only ingredient I see in them that arent in our base sauces are dried methi leaves, however they do give a 3rd way to produce the base sauce which is combining the pre cooking meat stage with the making of the sauce, they give 2 variants one for lamb and mutton, the other for chicken.

Here is the one for chicken:

Pre-cooking chicken and making Balti sauce

3lb chicken
3 onions, chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped
1 TBSP salt
2 inch fresh ginger, peeled and grated
6 large garlic cloves, crushed
2.5 TSP Balti spice mix (Just use bruce edwards restaurant masala, they arent too different)
1 TSP turmeric
4 cloves
2 inch cinnamon
1 black or 4 green cardamoms, broken open (dont know what this is about, black and green cardamoms are not in anyway interchangeable in my book!)
2 black peppercorns
1 TBSP fresh chopped coriander
2 TBSP veg oil

Lob everything except the coriander and oil into a pan, add 300ml water, bring to boil, cover and simmer for 30-35 minutes

The chicken should be ready at this point so remove

Add the coriander and oil and return to the boil, stir for 2 minutes

Fish out the cinnamon and cardamom and blend the mixture.

The recipe for lamb is a little different and involves more spices, oil and methi for some reason.


I havent tried this but I bet it produces a decent base as it is cooking with the meat, they talk about using not just chicken breast but portions and meat coming off thebone so this sounds like it will impart a similar flavour to Pete's chicken jelly.

I cooked a Dhansak for tea last night, cooked it at about about 16:30 then popped it in a casserole dish, reheated it for tea at 19:30 to make sure I had got rid of the smell from my nostrils, its was great and me and the missus wolfed the lot down. The more and more I think about this the more I think if you cook a curry and serve it straight from the pan you will never be able to replicate the taste.