In modern Indian cookery, "curry" refers to spice blends with turmeric as their key ingredient; spice blends without turmeric are called masala.

Source:  https://www.etymonline.com/word/curry#etymonline_v_491
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** Phil.

My wife's hotel has just been gifted four brace of freshly-shot pheasant, and I have been asked to "do the necessary".  I know that they need to be hung, but for how long ?  I have improvised with road-kill pheasants in the past, and of course have cooked pre-hung, drawn and plucked pheasants, but never had to deal with multiple pheasants all requiring the full process.  All advice welcome.
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** Phil.

As my lack of contributions has undoubtedly revealed, my motivation for cookery (Indian or otherwise) much diminished after my enforced move to Cornwall, and my last two attempts at something as simple as a steak-and-kidney pie, or steak-and-kidney with dumplings, were not a patch on my previous efforts when I lived in Kent.  However, the permanent closure of my local butcher (George Hawkes) last Saturday motived me to buy up all of the ox kidney that he could get before closing, and since then I have made both a steak-and-kidney pie and steak-and-kidney with parsley dumplings.  The pie was OK, but the crust was a bit thin because I had insufficient S.R. flour, but the last was absolutely superb.  My dumplings floated like little clouds, and the flavour and texture were out of this world; it was followed by equally superb freshly poached (and chilled) Victoria plums.  I now wonder whether I can perhaps recapture my former interest in BIR cuisine ...
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** Phil.

It is now some time since I last cooked a curry (sufficiently long, in fact, that I no longer remember when I last did so), but it is not that which inspires my question.  Rather, it is something that I experienced over the last two or three days.  On Sunday I played a bowls match in Newquay (Cornwall) and, as I always do when I am in Newquay, I later dined at Zaman's restaurant.  It is, as far as I am concerned, the best BIR in Cornwall, both food and service being beyond compare.  But after eating my starter (two extremely nice seekh kebabs, served with grilled onions which I wrapped in a chapati to eat), I felt too full to want to start on my main course, so asked the restaurant to pack it up for me to eat later.  I didn't eat it when I arrived home, I didn't eat it yesterday, but I ate it this evening.  It comprised a beautifully fragrant pulao rice, a well-textured sag aloo, and a lamb dhansak that clearly contained at least two different sorts of pulse/lentil.  But I didn't enjoy it (I ate barely one third).  Even after adding lime pickle (my standard accompaniment to a lamb dhansak) it just did nothing for me.  I am therefore beginning to think that I have tired of curries, and now need to find some other staple food on which to exist.  I realise that a BIR forum is perhaps not the best place to ask such a question, but I do wonder whether any current members of CR0 have ever had a similar experience.
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** Phil.

A few nights ago my wife brought home the remains of a portion of lamb dhansak from the Himalayan Spice in Liskeard.  Unfortunately she had eaten all but one piece of the lamb, so using 976bar's methdology for pre-cooking lamb, I cut up and pre-cooked a whole shoulder.  My wife was apprehensive, believing that the volume of bone would make the £7/kilo price uneconomic, but of a whole shoulder weighing 1,28kg the scapula weighed in at just over 90gm and and the shoulder joint at even less, so a very good price indeed IMHO. 

Unfortunately Rob's spicing didn't seem to complement the flavour of the dhansak, so I decided instead to turn it into a lamb biryani.  Now, ever since I acquired a Silvercrest "Instant pot" clone I have used it for cooking rice, no matter whether steamed, fried or pulao, and it does a first-class job, so this evening I used my "Perfect pulao" recipe (with added saffron) to make pulao rice in the Instant Pot, sautéeing the spices with the lid off before putting the lid on and switching to "Rice" mode ("less" setting, just six minutes, plus 10 or so to allow the safety interlock to release).  I then added the diced lamb (cut to roughly 3/4" pieces from Rob's initial 2" cubes), mixed it all together, put the lid back on and left it on its tickover/keep warm setting for maybe a further 30 minutes.  Overall the dish was very successful, with beautifully tender lamb pieces in a fragrant pulao, but the flavour was not as intense as I would have wished.  Next time I will use my MDH Bombay biryani mix and see how that works ...
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** Phil.