Curry Recipes Online
Curry Chat => Lets Talk Curry => Topic started by: George on March 12, 2020, 05:10 PM
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The first time I think I came across this dish was at a Sunday buffet in a small town BIR. The slow cooked lamb dish was delicious even though all the other dishes were mediocre. I asked the owner if it could be ordered off the menu mid-week and he said to ask for lamb bhuna. I never did get around to it and have never ordered 'lamb bhuna' because I very much doubt if a speedily cooked bhuna would provide the same depth of flavour. The next time was at a lunch buffet in the middle of Glasgow. The sauce was devine. Next, I came across Aldi's bhuna (as in my photo) and, when cooked with lamb, it's something like 75% as good as the buffet offerings. This makes it worthy of recommendation in my opinion. Aldi and Lidl offer a range of curry sauces in jars, topped with curry powder in a compartment on top. None of the others which I have tried are anything special.
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I've tried Jalfrezi and Dopiaza variety of these product and didn't think highly of either.
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livo - so you have Aldi down under? I am recommending the specific jar in my photograph - not any of the others.
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Yes, we do. I'll keep an eye out for that one.
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Had great trouble finding it, George. A very helpful Aldi assistant, as well as getting me a free trolley, took me to where the Aldi own-brand curry sauces were shelved, but it wasn't amongst them. In the end I succeeded though (it was in a completely different location), and also picked up a saag masala at the same time.
** Phil.
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Phil - thanks for checking it out. I think the bhuna is a special which appears only every few months and, yes, is in a different location. I've had some really tasty chicken saag chilled food dishes from supermarkets so looked forward to trying Aldi's saag sauce but it wasn't in the same league.
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The first time I think I came across this dish was at a Sunday buffet in a small town BIR. The slow cooked lamb dish was delicious even though all the other dishes were mediocre. [...] Next, I came across Aldi's bhuna (as in my photo) and, when cooked with lamb, it's something like 75% as good as the buffet offerings.
So when you made the Aldi version, George, did you follow the (almost unreadable) recipe on the jar ? I ask because I am cooking it tonight, and while I am being guided by the recipe, I am making a number of real-time adjustments :
- Use 300gm lamb instead of 340gm (all I had)
- Use 50ml oil (mustard oil) rather than 15ml
- Bhoon the spices before the lamb, not vice-versa
- Use only half of the sauce.
** Phil.
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- Use only half of the sauce.
** Phil.
Wouldn't it be better to use the whole jar and cook it down till it's thick, bhuna style, seeing as it's bhuna?
I actually picked up a jar of the bhuna and also a jalfrezi only because the panic buying has got me spooked a bit. Normally wouldn't go near any of the pre-made curries.
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- Use only half of the sauce.
Wouldn't it be better to use the whole jar and cook it down till it's thick, bhuna style, seeing as it's bhuna?
Well,I am certainly cooking it down to a near-dry consistency ("real bhuna", not this modern travesty) but if I use twice as much sauce I'll get more spice, and I am not convinced that the dish will benefit from it. At the moment I can still taste the lamb (a flavour that I love) but I think that might be masked wwere I to add extra spice content ...
I actually picked up a jar of the bhuna and also a jalfrezi only because the panic buying has got me spooked a bit.
Good thinking, but I think you'd do even better to freeze an assortment of the Morrison's own-brand curries ("Flaming phal", "Volcanic vindaloo" and so on). They also do a bhuna which is not bad, IMHO.
** Phil.
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So when you made the Aldi version, George, did you follow the (almost unreadable) recipe on the jar ? I ask because I am cooking it tonight, and while I am being guided by the recipe, I am making a number of real-time adjustments :
- Use 300gm lamb instead of 340gm (all I had)
- Use 50ml oil (mustard oil) rather than 15ml
- Bhoon the spices before the lamb, not vice-versa
- Use only half of the sauce.
** Phil.
Sorry for the delay in replying. I followed the quantities and order of adding ingredients as on the jar. I then added the sauce slowly, a bit at a time until all the sauce had been used up and the sauce was bhuna-like, i.e. mostly evaporated off with not much left. So the sauce would have been quite concentrated and maybe that's why it tasted good.
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Thank you George. I do occasionally wonder whether I do some dishes a dis-service by adding less base (or sauce, or whatever) than the amount called for by the recipe. Clearly a controlled experiment is called for, but I rather lack the motivation ... !
OT : Has anyone read Cyrus Todiwala's International cuisine: India ? I picked up a copy for less than
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Phil, I haven
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I could post you one ... Been in the 'fridge since around Burn's night (January 25th), and as far as I am concerned, totally safe to cook and eat !
** Phil.
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For George, Santa and anyone else interested
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...deemed not fit for human consumption by the FDA.
Robbo
Unlike, say, chlorinated chicken?!
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For some inexplicable reason the Bhuna sauce only comes into stock very infrequently, whilst many of their less interesting and authentic curry sauces are in stock all year round.
** Phil.
Even worse, I wonder if they are stocked nationally at the same time; Aldi's click & collect has it available but of course, my local store... does not! Actually, on that, does anyone else have problems with the Aldi site? E.G: I requested a new password half an hour ago... still waiting on the reset link :boom: it often seems prett poor, with circular links etc. Still, mustn't grumble!
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For George, Santa and anyone else interested
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Called in to check in Aldi Bodmin, and there are three separate packagings :
- Vindaloo / Dopiaza / Bhuna / Keralan Coconut
- Tikka Masala / Korma / Butter Chicken / Saag Masala
- Balti / Madras / Rogan Josh / Jalfrezi
so if you can't find it, you can ask the staff whether that particular consignment has arrived.
** Phil.
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Aldi seems to be growing rapidly here in the Carolinas. I
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For some inexplicable reason the Bhuna sauce only comes into stock very infrequently, whilst many of their less interesting and authentic curry sauces are in stock all year round.
** Phil.
Even worse, I wonder if they are stocked nationally at the same time; Aldi's click & collect has it available but of course, my local store... does not! Actually, on that, does anyone else have problems with the Aldi site? E.G: I requested a new password half an hour ago... still waiting on the reset link :boom: it often seems pretty poor, with circular links etc. Still, mustn't grumble!
Mission accomplished
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Gonna give it a whirl tonight. Dead right though: spices, then meat is the order of the day...
Be sure to use lamb if you seek my result of approx 75% as good as a BIR buffet bhuna. Mix spices with some water to form a paste and fry carefully on low heat. Then add a small amount of the sauce at a time, remaining on low heat. The overall cooking time should be dragged out for as long as possible to maximise the flavour of the end result.
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Ah! Thanks, George. Can't help but wish you happened to have said that 10" earlier... I've just got out the kitchen! Having said that, vis a vis what you were saying at the beginning of this thread, I deliberately used lamb-which of course withstands a longer cook, doesn't it. Mind you, I used pre-cooked lamb-did you too?
I'll post a pic when it's plated up, but I wish i'd thought of turning the powder into a paste: I followed the-kind of generic, I admit-bhuna in my head (probably implanted there by Mick Crawford from my earliest days on the forum!). So used the Aldi mix in place of our own spice mix, adding onions, peppers, garlic paste, other powders, chopped coriander etc, at the usual points. And, I admit, the Aldi sauce went in in three dollops, with some hot water which had "cleaned" the jar.
Pre-eating conclusions:I didn't get the caramelisation I'd usually expect to see with a normal (of course thinner) base, but on the other hand, cooking off their own spice mix at the beginning definitely smelt like the "real thing", so the sauce is looking good.
On the other hand, I grabbed the last eight of nine jars on the shelf earlier*, so I'll be doing another one-and this time I'll be following your advice there George. How long woould you suggest overall cooking time be?
(*always feel a bit bad clearing the entire shelf!)
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I used pre-cooked lamb-did you too?
No, I should have stressed to use raw lamb because I'm fairly sure it's the lamb juices which provide much of the flavour in this dish.
Whereas with chicken I often think the juices from raw poultry detract from a 'curry' type flavour. I mean the use of chicken in general. I've never used it with the Aldi bhuna sauce but I did with other sauces in the range and maybe that explains why they tasted so disapppointing.
For total cooking time, maybe 30 or 45 mins, not least to make sure the raw lamb is cooked through.
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30-45 minutes to cook lamb? Surely it will still be bleating!!!
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[D]oes anyone else have problems with the Aldi site? E.G: I requested a new password half an hour ago... still waiting on the reset link :boom: it often seems prett poor, with circular links etc. Still, mustn't grumble!
I've made two "online special" orders, and both have been very successful. In particular, I can highly recommend the Scheppach compressor (https://www.aldi.co.uk/ferrex-2-5hp-air-compressor/p/705785387017900) which was on offer a few weeks ago
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I followed the-kind of generic, I admit-bhuna in my head (probably implanted there by Mick Crawford from my earliest days on the forum!). So used the Aldi mix in place of our own spice mix, adding onions, peppers, garlic paste, other powders, chopped coriander etc, at the usual points.
I tried adding the same extra ingredients in a further use of the Aldi sauce some time ago. To my surprise, the end result was not as good, reducing the taste down to perhaps 25% as good as a BIR bhuna buffet. Go figure! I don't know the reason. If something works by experimenting, then great. But this didn't. So I suggest sticking to the method on the jar (frying the lamb first), except for longer, slower cooking, and adding a bit of water to the ground spices, to form a paste.
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So I suggest sticking to the method on the jar (frying the lamb first), except for longer, slower cooking, and adding a bit of water to the ground spices, to form a paste.
I haven't used my first jar yet but my gut feeling would be to gently cook raw lamb in the sauce, maybe watered down a bit, until done. So 1.5 - 2 hours. I would then cook the curry as normal with spices into the oil first and then using this curry-meat-stew as the base sauce. I wouldn't fry the lamb as the spices in the sauce penetrate better, in my opinion, if just cooked raw in the sauce as if making precooked lamb. I'll do it that way in the next few days anyway except with chicken as I've got a couple of chicken legs I've got to use up and I'll report back as to the result.
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Unfortunately the Bhuna is not seen in Aldi here, or at least I've not been able to find it. I've seen all of the others and I've actually had the Dopiaza which seems odd if it's packed with the Bhuna. Maybe it is popular and disappears from the shelf quickly. I'll ask next time I'm in store. The website out here is useless.
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Well I made it but feeling too lazy to cook I just tipped the bhuna sauce and spices into a casserole dish with two chicken legs, gave it a good stir and cooked it covered for about 1.5 hours. So with the caveat that I didn't cook as per jar instructions or even the way I intended to cook it, the verdict is ... meh!
It was ok but really just what I expected from any jarred or tinned curry sauce. It doesn't resemble any bhuna I've ever had. I only bought it as a store cupboard item in case the Covid pandemic turned into a zombie apocalypse and it wasn't all that bad, just in no way worthy of any special praise.
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Secret Santa - I could have predicted that before you almost wasted your time. This thread is about lamb bhuna. Your result sounds similar to the lacklustre results I attained using chicken with various other sauces in the same range.
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Secret Santa - I could have predicted that before you almost wasted your time. This thread is about lamb bhuna. Your result sounds similar to the lacklustre results I attained using chicken with various other sauces in the same range.
I'd agree that lamb would probably flavour the sauce more than chicken, but still, it's never going to be more than an emergency curry. I wouldn't go out of my way to buy it.
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OT, but connected. I have just tried my first jar of Aldi's Specially selected rich and spicy Goan-inspired vindaloo cooking sauce (the same range as George's bhuna sauce) and it was not bad at all, certainly better than the Farmfoods'-sourced Spice Magic Madras curry sauce that I tried recently. I used 45ml of mixed oils rather than the 15ml specified, bhooned one teaspoon of g/g paste in the oils before adding the dry spices, then added seven pieces of Syed's pre-cooked chicken, and finally added about 2/3 of a jar of the cooking sauce, initially one dessertspoon at a time, building up to adding the remainder. To finish off I added three chopped green chillies and a similar volume of chopped coriander roots, and dressed with some chopped coriander leaf to serve. The main modifications were (a) to add a fair amount of boiling water, as otherwise the sauce would have been far too thick for my taste, and (b) to add plenty of salt. Allowing for those simple modifications, I would say that the sauce is by no means a bad starting point, although from the way that it stuck to the pan at times I suspect there is some artificial thickening agent (e.g., cornflour) included. Definitely worth a punt, and the cooked sauce is good enough to eat by itself once all the chicken has gone.
** Phil.
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Phil - good to hear you discovered another half decent sauce. About a week ago, I looked for the bhuna in my local Aldi, with a view to restock. But there wasn't a single jar left; only about 10 jars of the vindaloo. Maybe the bhuna sauce is picking up supporters.
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I haven
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I've got lazy lately, and haven't made a base in a while. So I tried using a cheapo jar of Lidl Korma sauce, watered down, as a base gravy. As it's lightly spiced I thought it was the best one to try, and have had reasonable results making different curries with it. Not to everybodies taste I know, but worth a go if desperate.
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I haven
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My recollection of the small original cans of Patak's sauces is that they were better than the currently available jars. It could well be a tainted memory but when I found and used an old tin from my pantry a while back I wasn't too disappointed. I copped a bit of a roasting on this forum about it though.
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My favorite act of curry heresy involved that can of Pataks Vindaloo sauce and a couple of Birds Eye frozen beef burgers. Keep that quiet.
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:lol:
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My recollection of the small original cans of Patak's sauces is that they were better than the currently available jars. It could well be a tainted memory but when I found and used an old tin from my pantry a while back I wasn't too disappointed. I copped a bit of a roasting on this forum about it though.
Did someone cry, 'that's not a BIR!' even though
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I very much fear that dropping some pre-cooked chicken into a commercial sauce may well be what a fairly large fraction of BIRs get up to these days ...
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Something like that Onions. I completely understood where he was coming from though
https://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=15091.msg132603#msg132603 (https://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=15091.msg132603#msg132603)
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A cool thread that Livo. At least we know your five-year-old sauce didn't do any long-term damage :cool: how did it taste, in the end?
(Also a shout out to Phil's highlighting the bizarrity of the season, "ooh I could jump off a grape!")
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I'll try to word this in such a way as to keep on topic. As far as the Aldi line goes, I've only ever tried the Dopiaza and from memory I quite liked it. I think I may still have at least one Aldi jar in my time capsule cupboard as I recall seeing the spice holding lid. I'm not sure of which variety it is, or they are, so I 'll have to check now.
The time capsule cupboard is a deep corner cupboard where things go to sit through years of waiting before finally being determined as past it. You need a torch to see into the back corner and you have to get on hands and knees to crawl in to reach the longest residents. It's sort of Hotel California for packaged food that seemed like a good idea at the time of purchase. This is where I found the relic Pataks Tikka Masala can Onions, which was more like 12 years old, or more, and 5 years past the "use by" date. It had been on at least one and possibly two home relocations before eventual use last year It still made a half decent dish for curry in a can. CT didn't give it his nod of approval which was completely understandable.
Unfortunately, I still can't get the Bhuna from Aldi out here.
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Unfortunately, I still can't get the Bhuna from Aldi out here.
You're not missing out on anything!
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If it weren't for Australia's hostile food immigration policy, I could post you some Livo ...
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Thanks Phil. Economically unviable as well really. I don't need it that badly.
Out of interest though, is there an ingredients listing?
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There is an ingredient list, but trying to transcribe it is an absolute nightmare. I shall do my best to photograph it and attach ...
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I wouldn't suggest trying to create anything like this sauce by looking at the ingredients. To be honest it's not that good. I estimated 70% as good as the buffet tray based lamb bhunas I've rated very highly at a couple of places. I also made a lamb bhuna from raw ingredients using a recipe from a book I have. This was much better than the Aldi sauce, being perhaps between 90% and 110% as good as the buffet versions. I'd need to compare them at the same time to be sure, which is impossible - but really moreish and significantly better than the Aldi sauce. I don't want to knock the Aldi bhuna too much because it's amazing for so little outlay and ease of preparation. I don't know why Aldi only have it from time-to-time rather than as a regular item.
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I agree George. Looking at Phil's pictures makes it obvious that you wouldn't even try, but thanks anyway Phil.
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I also made a lamb bhuna from raw ingredients using a recipe from a book I have.
Come on George, don't keep us all in suspense
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I'm sorry but I have forgotten the name and can't remember where I put the book! I will try to find it soon, though. When I first bought the book, I considered it yet another con in terms of revealing, as claimed, curry house type recipes. But, of course, a slow cooked lamb curry prepared for a buffet is not your normal BIR type thing. All I know is that I hit the jackpot, for my taste, by trying the recipe from this book.
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The book is: Shish Mahal Cook Book Spiral-bound
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Got it :)
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I wouldn't suggest trying to create anything like this sauce by looking at the ingredients.
For me, the sheer number of different spices, and the significant variation in spicing between the bhuna and the vindaloo, suggest that some quite serious research went into developing these recipes. What do others think ?
** Phil.
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For me, the sheer number of different spices, and the significant variation in spicing between the bhuna and the vindaloo, suggest that some quite serious research went into developing these recipes. What do others think ?
I think effort in does not always lead to results out. I tried several of Aldi's permanent range of curry sauces - Jalfrezi, Balti, CTM, Korma, etc - I didn't rate any of them very highly.
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In the absence of those specific Aldi jars, I picked this up from my local supermarket.
Made by small family owned company in North Carolina.
(https://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/imagehost/pics/ad0867a16dac8baad93f82a72adf8125.jpeg) (https://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/imagehost/#ad0867a16dac8baad93f82a72adf8125.jpeg)
Fried a little onion in oil & ghee, added this sauce, a ladle at a time, treating it like a base gravy. It thickened up nicely, caramelized well.
Result: horrible. Overly tangy for me and no better than any other rubbish jar sauce.
Binned it rather than waste the 1lb of big fat shrimp I had prepared. Rustled up a quick Thai red curry instead. Can
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Cooked it. Ate it. Fair to OK, but no big deal. Too much Black Cardamom. One would have been sufficient. Way too much Garam Masala to finish which was obvious so I only used half. Who would sprinkle 2 TBSP of GM on a finished dish? I can only hope it is better tomorrow, which it should be. The dish works in method but lacks in end product for immediate consumption and requires adjustment. I still have a very strong aftertaste of Black Cardamom 1 hour after eating it.
I quickly looked through a few of my other books and found 2 recipes almost identical. One is a Balti Bhoona Lamb and the other is a Parsi Lamb Curry.
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All discussions pertaining to copyright have been moved to "Off-topic replies (https://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=15554.msg138416#msg138416)".
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Cooked it. Ate it. Fair to OK, but no big deal.
OMG - I should never have posted the book name. It seems to have been wasted on you, when I would have expected you to know how to optimise a recipe for your taste. That's what I almost certainly did, to get spectacular results. For example, I doubt very much if I added any garam masala, let alone the quantity you added. There were other tweaks I made and you could have made your own adjustments, tasting as you cooked, but failed to do so. That's the second recipe you've trashed, somehow. The first one was Ghanna's chicken korma. I found a document recently where a previous member rated various recipes on here with marks out of ten. He seemed to rate that korma above almost any other recipe on this forum, as at a few years ago. I tend to agree but you somehow went wrong and thought it was awful. Go figure!
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Following a recipe isn't difficult and I didn't botch either. The Bhoona is good. The Korma was not, but I now understand it to be a classic example of BIR Korma, as demonstrated by The Curry Kid among others.
The Bhoona: Would you taste and tweak the frying of onions, garlic and ginger? Maybe in the middle or end of 10 minutes bhooning the spices or immediately after adding the raw lamb, tomato, salt and sugar or after the initial 10 minutes cooking the meat? At none of these points will you know what is going to present and you would likely have to rinse your mouth. You are trusting the author. Only after you add water and start to reduce the sauce and cook the lamb can you tell what you have. Not much you can do at this point. Adding 2 TBSP of Garam Masala was clearly not something I would do so that was easy.
It is interesting that the last instruction is to test the sauce. For what? It doesn't say. Nor does it say what to do if it isn't right. You can't remove the excess black cardamom.
Having now cooked it, without half of the specified Garam Masala to finish, I feel able to cook it again with the simple removal of 1 black cardamom. Please inform us of the other obvious tweaks you made and at what points you did tastings and what to test for George.
My usual practise is to follow a recipe closely on the first occasion and make changes after that.
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My usual practice is to follow a recipe closely on the first occasion and make changes after that.
As is mine, although there are times when I find myself questioning a unit and wondering whether I should assume a typo. and substitute (e.g.,) teaspoonful for tablespoonful. On at least one occasion I have failed to make the substitution and bitterly regretted the time and ingredients wasted
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Ghanna's chicken korma. I found a document recently where a previous member rated various recipes on here with marks out of ten. He seemed to rate that korma above almost any other recipe on this forum, as at a few years ago.
I'd be interested in trying this George, if you could point my way to it-is it on the forum? I've found myself recently appreciating a milder curry every now and then-if only for the change of taste-but I admit I haven't gone so far as adding fruit yet! (Thinking BIR Kashmiri and Malay which, IIRC, are centred on banana and pineapple? Or is it lychees? Either way, I'm all for getting one's five-a-day, but that's going to extremes! :wink:)
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I'd be interested in trying [Ghanna's chicken korma] George, if you could point my way to it-is it on the forum?
I can't tell you which post is best, but a site-wide search for "Ghanna" and "korma", in message bodies and date order, should lead to the answer.
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Livo - I am pleased to see you have upgraded the bhuna from 'fair/OK' to 'good'. I wouldn't have been so rude if you'd written 'good' in the first place. All our tastes are different and I know I quite like black cardamons so I doubt if I reduced the quantity of those. But it was about 18 months ago, when I made that dish and I can't really remember what I did, except not adding ANY garam masala. The reason was that it already tasted like the buffet bhunas which I was trying to emulate and I guessed that any garam masala would probably spoil the flavour. In addition, I may have added additional whole spices at the start. You could perhaps look at the similar recipes you found to see which whole spices they use. I don't trust restaurant authors to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The author may have dumbed down the recipe a bit, compared to what he would make. Adding further spices may have addressed what he could have left out.
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I'd be interested in trying this George, if you could point my way to it-is it on the forum?
See here: https://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=312.0
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An update on the Lamb Bhoona. Normally, in my experience anyway, a curry would improve after a rest in the fridge. This dish is a rare exception. It was better when first cooked. Tonight the flavour had intensified so much that I could only eat the smallest amount before it was just too much. The black cardamom is dominant but the whole spicing is just far too strong (in my opinion). It is probably the intensity caused by the 10 minute bhooning of the spices. The lamb was completely lost. It has nice soft texture but any lamb flavour is completely overwhelmed.
I do think the recipe has potential but I will make some adjustments next time.
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The main changes I made to the lamb bhoona recipe was to add a fair amount of full cream yoghurt and not add any garam masala. This was because an earlier recipe I'd tried 10 years ago for a lamb curry used yoghurt and I thought it was worth trying. The yoghurt may have 'toned down' and smoothed out the spices, for all I know, because, as I said, my end result was really good, at least for my taste.
Thanks for adding this George. I don't think adding the Garam Masala in the end is unusual but I was never going to add the quantity suggested. I halved it and I think it could be halved again. I know some people don't like it at all. I agree that the yogurt would tone the whole lot down but I also think that the 10 minute bhooning of the spices is a long time. I'll be definitely only using one Black Cardamom next time and reducing the bhooning stage to 5 minutes.
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The bhuna sauce is back in stock at the moment, as is the vindaloo, and I am about to have another go at the bhuna, this time with the idea of converting bhuna lamb into a lamb biryani. As the recipe on the jar is so d@mned hard to read, I transcribe it below for posterity.
- Dice 340gm of your chosen meat or vegetables
- Heat 15ml of oil in a saucepan (I used 30gm
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I tried another jar of Aldi's Bhuna sauce again with lamb a couple of weeks ago and, once more, it produced a really tasty meal - exceptional for a sauce coming out of a jar. Each time, I don't add all the sauce in one go but strech out the simmering time to 45 mins, adding about 1 heaped tbls sauce every few minutes.
Next, I tried lamb with Aldi's Jalfrezi sauce in exactly the same way, but it was nowhere near as tasty as the Bhuna sauce.
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On the first occasion I added the sauce in dribs and drabs, but on this occasion I did not bother, and the dish seemed none the worse for it.
** Phil.
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This is probably another case of geographical / cultural difference. When lamb chops are high out here there is no way you'd leave them in the fridge for another week. There is even less chance of making a curry with them. A bit of a pong and green / blue means not fit for human consumption. Even the dog thinks twice.
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I think that most of my fellow Britons would agree with your more cautious Antipodean attitude to food safety, Livo. I tend to be far more lax than most, willingly cutting a layer of mould off the top of chicken liver p
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If I can distract her for sufficiently long from her work on the third edition of Principles of Nutritional Assessment (https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Principles_of_Nutritional_Assessment.html?id=27i-qT9KqsUC&redir_esc=y), my friend Ros Gibson may well be able to provide a definitive answer.
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I make the Aldi Goan Bhuna for my family.
oil into pan, add a chopped onion, cook for 10 mins, add spices from lid, cook for 10 mins.
Then I add the jar of sauce and a tin of chopped tomatoes, fresh coriander, stalks & leaves, cook for about an hour until the tomatoes have melted into the sauce.
then add raw chicken and cook for 10 mins.
add some dried methi leaves, cook for 10 mins. the smell is stunning.
lovely thick bhunaesque sauce. the 2 pacmen in my house love it.
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I tried the vindaloo recently as well. I enjoyed it and preferred it to the bhuna but there's just no comparison to a BIR curry. All jarred curries are much of a muchness to me and these Aldi ones are no exception. I know the standard of BIR has fallen dramatically in the past couple of decades but if you're equating these Aldi curries to BIR then I dread to think what your local BIRs are serving up now.
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I would agree with much of that, Santa
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The thing is Santa, where is the recipe on this site that will produce the quality "BIR" Lamb Bhoona (Bhuna) reminiscent of the tales of yore? If it is here and it is good then why would anybody bother with a jarred Aldi knockoff? If there is one on this site, which one is it? If not, what is your go to recipe?
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I tried the vindaloo recently as well. I enjoyed it and preferred it to the bhuna but there's just no comparison to a BIR curry. All jarred curries are much of a muchness to me and these Aldi ones are no exception. I know the standard of BIR has fallen dramatically in the past couple of decades but if you're equating these Aldi curries to BIR then I dread to think what your local BIRs are serving up now.
I have never eaten a vindaloo in a BIR or anywhere else, so I can't comment on that. I disagree with you that the Aldi bhuna sauce is no better than any other bottled sauce from a supermarket. The reason I started this thread is that it stands out as being exceptional. As for a comparison with a BIR bhuna, I've never eaten a bhuna at a BIR either (from the menu, fast cooked) so I can't make a comparison to that, either. But I stand by my earlier comment that the Aldi bhuna sauce when cooked with lamb is around 70% as tasty as a slow-cooked BIR buffet bhuna. Lastly, I disagree that the standard of BIR food has fallen. Rather, I think it is better now that it's ever been, at least in my region. So I conclude that you and I simply have very different tastes. Neither of us are right or wrong, it's simply that we presumably perceive taste in a very different way.
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Last night I prepared yet another version of Lamb Bhoona, (along with a Bombay Beef Curry) and it turned out very well. It is one I'll be making again. It was based on a book recipe, Balti Bhoona Lamb, (1000 Recipes Indian, Chinese Thai and Asian) and I made a few adjustments and additions of my own because the book written recipe appeared to be quite lacking in anything much in the way of spices.
I doubled the amount of lamb to 500 - 600 grams, substituted a mixed curry powder for just turmeric, added the last 2 TBSP of my homemade Balti Paste into the preliminary paste and further added a good pinch of Kasoori Methi halfway through. I then added a cup of chopped red and green capsicum at the end of cooking. It produced a very nice curry and the best of the 3 Lamb Bhoona I've made recently.
For the Curry Powder I blended 1 TBSP of Clive of India Authentic Curry Powder, 1 TBSP of Mother's Recipe Madras Curry Powder, 1 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder and 1 tsp ground fenugreek seed. From this I used 1 TBSP for the dish.
There is another one I'm looking forward to trying soon and that is the one by Hari Ghotra.
https://www.harighotra.co.uk/lamb-bhuna-recipe (https://www.harighotra.co.uk/lamb-bhuna-recipe)
This looks very promising.
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I portioned a whole (remaindered) leg of lamb just this week, so shall be very interested in the outcome of your experiments Livo. But I think my first challenge will be to make a really good lamb dhansak, and then a lamb biryani
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Having recently re-discovered the delights of home-cooked (albeit not home-made) BIR cuisine with my Co-op Indian meal deal for £8-00, and being too mean to spend £3-50 on just one Co-op main course, I took a pack of free-range corn-fed chicken breasts out of the freezer a day or so ago, and this evening made a rather good Indian chicken curry (generic name because I mixed two quite different dishes) using Aldi's "Specially selected fragrant Punjabi-inspired bhuna" mix. As before, I bhooned the spices before adding the chicken, but this time using the technique that my wife taught me for making Singapore rice noodles — rather than adding the spices to oil in the pan and then frying, I heat the oil in the pan, add the spices, and immediately turn off the heat (being induction, this is virtually instantaneous). The spices change colour nicely, and become beautifully fragrant, but there is zero risk of burning them. I also used considerably more oil that Aldi recommend — probably 60ml, if not more, being a mixture of chilli-infused and garlic-infused rapeseed oils. When the spices were nicely bhooned I added the chicken (two breasts made about 24 curry-sized pieces), turned up the heat to 40% and cooked and stirred until the chicken was uniformly but lightly cooked. I then added one heaped dessert spoon of the sauce, stirred and cooked until it had reduced, added a second heaped dessert spoon and repeated — this left about 2/3 of the sauce unused. I checked the seasoning, added a heaped coffee spoon of kala namak, four finely chopped green chillis and a few finely chopped coriander stalks. Finally I blended in the remaining "chicken tikka" sauce from the previous (Co-op) meal and served with a freshly cooked frozen paratha (fried in ghee). A delicious meal, not at all time consuming, and far better than anything I have eaten in any local BIR for quite some time.
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** Phil.
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Very satisfying Phil. I’ve yet to find a store-bought simmer sauce / curry I’m happy with, so sticking to what I know. For the times I have no base gravy I can always rely on the Instant Pot for a quick ‘dump and cook’ meal.
Singapore noodles was my go-to lunch on the many times I was in that beautiful little country. Not as often as I ate my absolute favorite Nasi Goreng though…
Robbo
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Gonna give it a whirl tonight. Dead right though: spices, then meat is the order of the day...
Be sure to use lamb if you seek my result of approx 75% as good as a BIR buffet bhuna. Mix spices with some water to form a paste and fry carefully on low heat. Then add a small amount of the sauce at a time, remaining on low heat. The overall cooking time should be dragged out for as long as possible to maximise the flavour of the end result.
Sadly I failed to heed your warning, George, and attempted to cook a chicken bhuna using the Aldi stuff. While it wasn't a total disaster, it was nothing like the good bhuna chicken dishes I have had in the past. I used pre-velveted chicken (my wife had given me a large batch that was superfluous to hotel needs) for the first time, and I am now unconvinced that pre-velveted chicken works in BIR cuisine [but see below], but it was not the texture of the chicken that I disliked as much as the flavour of the overall dish. Ah well, I will have to finish it up, and will then probably turn the remainder of the pre-velveted chicken into (Chinese) chicken with chilli and black bean sauce !
Of course, it is possible that Aldi have changed the recipe — have you tried it recently ?
[Update 19-Apr-2023] I have just learned that the chicken was not just pre-velvetted — it had been marinaded in soya sauce. thus explaning the unpleasant flavour. Why herself thought that it would work in a curry I will never know ...
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** Phil.
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Of course, it is possible that Aldi have changed the recipe — have you tried it recently ?
Not tried for a year or more but I have a few bottles of unopened bhuna sauce in the cupboard, so thank you for reminding me. Almost certainly past the use by date.
My most recent discovery of really tasty food from Aldi is their chicken biriani, a chilled food dish which is very good indeed. Much better than most biriani from BIRs. Not all branches seem to stock it
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I shall look out for it, George (the biryani, that is). From the Aldi illustration (https://aldprdproductimages.azureedge.net/media/$Aldi_GB/06.02.23/4088600543826_0.jpg), it would appear that one has to assemble it before serving, as the rice and the chicken+sauce appear to be contiguous but separate, if you know what I mean. As to "use-by" dates (or "best before" dates, or whatever), I treat them in the same way that I treat rules — for the guidance of the wise but the blind obedience of fools". I routinely remove mould from cheese, pâté, compôtes, etc., and then eat what remains.
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** Phil.
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Phil - the Biriani is left 'separated' for the first half of the cooking time. You then stir it together for the remaining time. Worth searching for because I think it 's so good.
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Phil - the Biriani is left 'separated' for the first half of the cooking time. You then stir it together for the remaining time. Worth searching for because I think it 's so good.
OK, my task for tomorrow !
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Almost a year later...Aldi seem to have deleted the chicken biriani not long after I recommended it. Typical! One from Sainsburys is also quite good.