Topic: 100 Best Balti Curries by Diane Lowe/Mike Davidson

[jb]

Ok I know I've got too many curry books(or so the wife says) but I had to buy this from Amazon...cost me the princely sum of 1 pence plus 2 quid postage!!!  I understand this particular book used to sell for quite a bit of money(I know some of it is included in the download section but it's nice to have the book and flip through it).Purports to be genuine balti house recipes but my question is it any good??

[haldi]

I've made several meals from it, I never repeated one, but they were ok
There are a selection of bases and precook methods, involving the preperation of the base
The truth is that these recipes, don't taste like anything, I have bought before
It's still a lovely book to read through
All the illustrations are drawings
Definitely worth having in your curry library

[JerryM]

this existing post seems to fit the bill  - ie to add feedback by members on how they get on with the book.

is the book any good - No. is it worth the money - Yes

my thoughts are based on if your expectation (like for many book) that it will produce restaurant or TA food then it disappoints big style. it does have a lot of information in it and the best potential i've come across in order to achieve that 100% pukka dish goal.

i see myself spending a good few months if not year on the book.

would very much appreciate feedback by members if or when they try things out from the book.

[JerryM]

Go No 1.

i've made the dishes as single portions ie 150ml of base and taken a quarter of the ingredients. i've also stripped out most of the ingredients so that i can concentrate on the spicing or flavouring of the dish sauce. the things stripped out i know the taste of and if you can get the sauce right then these additions will propel the dish into something special.

have made:

pg 22 pre cook chicken balti sauce
pg 24 basic everyday balti sauce
pg 53 balti
pg 114 madras balti
adil balti r3 Three Balti Post (latest recipe)

observations:
1) the ginger comes through too much even using 0.25 tsp
2) the garlic really does have to be crushed in a garlic crusher ie even fine chop too big
3) the cinnamon well overpowered the pre cook balti sauce and ruined the dish
4) i cooked on my domestic hob in wok and ended up throwing all ingredients in at start
5) gm has to be made fresh (last batch made a few weeks ago was rubbish and used for rice)
6) loved the effect of garlic powder

conclusion:
family in disbelief how bad the food was. a long way to go on this. feel i need some number crunching and set plan of attack.

on the plus side the base is very quick to produce - made 2 off in about 1 hr.

[JerryM]

have finished comparing the pg22 and pg24 bases.

now intend to make the pg 25 rolls Royce version. it's uncannily like the Lynette Baxter base which i know and feel is pretty top notch. the rolls royce combines the 2 (ie spice balance and whole spice depth).

thoughts on the pg22 and 24 being that you need the combined "rolls royce". the pg 22 pre cook includes whole spice where as the everyday base pg 24 has good spice blend (nice cumin) but lacks that depth.

the pre cook for me has too much ginger (5cm cube c/w 2 cm in the everyday). the cinnamon at 5 cm is too much too (at least half reduction needed) - it needs to be specified in weight and something like 10 g would be my going forward starting point.

as posted in three balti post - not convinced every balti needs mix powder. having very good result with just gm and tandoori masala.

only really touched the book so far - encouraging though

[JerryM]

Go No2

made the pg 25 Rolls Royce version - absolutely spot on. a really good base and felt it was the type of base i would at a guess expect in a balti house.

for me i would reduce the no black/brown cardamom from 4 to 2 off as they slightly were out of balance.

i'd also adopt my norm of adding more oil to reclaim before blending, cook for 1 hour c/w 30 mins and adopt a stage 2 cook after blending.

i used asian bay although i think Bengali Bob has said ladypool road has more european stuff (may swap on next make).

was real surprised how well the methi sat in the base (not used before). i'm also not fan of ginger in base either but this sat well too. well impressed.