Chicken Balti Recipe | Restaurant Style | Hint Of Helen (2024)

FAQs

What is chicken Balti made of? ›

Mix the turmeric, cumin, ground coriander and garam masala together. Tip into the pan, lower the heat to medium and cook for 2 mins (step 3). Pour in the passata and 150ml water, then drop in the chunks of pepper. When starting to bubble, lower the heat and simmer for 15-20 mins or until the chicken is tender.

Curries are usually made in regular pots, while Balti curry is made in a special pan called a “balti.” Also, Balti curry has a mix of spices and ingredients, and it's often served right from the pan it was cooked in, which makes it different from other curries.

Most standard baltis however are cooked to a medium level of spice, hotter than a korma or a pasanda, but less spicy than a jalfrezi or madras. Restaurants are usually flexible however, and you can ask them to dial the spice up or down if you prefer, or choose one of the other traditional styles.

It is a mild, tomato based curry made with a fresh blend of many aromatic spices, and it is a very 'wet' curry, with lots of tasty gravy. It is usually cooked with chicken or lamb, with the addition of fresh garlic, ginger, onion, chopped tomatoes, coriander leaves and 2-3 tsp of the Balti spice mixture.

Balti spices such as, cardamom and black pepper are all thought to ease digestion problems. Three common Balti ingredients – garlic, onion and chili peppers – have been found to help reduce high cholesterol levels.

Balti is the Hindi word for the bucket. Most Balti dishes like Tarka daal, urad dal, or murgh masala are served by Indian restaurants in cast iron round-bottomed woks with two handles. Dishes with a lot of gravy, like dal tadka or karahi curry, are served in a deep bowl with handles.

The Karahi curry is a spicy dish and is a particular favourite in Northern India and Pakistan. It is related to the Balti and Jalfrezi as all of them are stir fried dishes. A Karahi is actually the name for a type of Indian iron round bottomed wok in the same way that a Balti is a flat bottomed metal dish too.

Karahi. Karahi dish is similar to a balti, and so can sometimes be interchanged with balti recipes. The most well known karahi dish is made with chicken and hails from Northern India.

Balti, as a food, is named after the steel or iron pot in which it is cooked, similar to a karahi from the same region. The word is found in Hindustani, Odia, and Bengali, and means "bucket".

Balti is considered as a healthy curry dish since healthy spices like turmeric powder, garam masala are used and it contains generous vegetables like tomatoes and bell peppers along with the main ingredient like chicken, meat, seafood or paneer.

Where did the chicken Balti come from? ›

The Balti was invented in Birmingham during the 1970s, when the city's Pakistani residents created a fusion dish inspired by traditional Kashmiri recipes but cooked in a way that was more appealing to western tastes.

Originating in Northern India and Pakistan, the Korma is traditionally made up of yoghurt, coconut milk and almonds, making it one of the mildest curries available.

A tomato based sauce with peppers, cumin and coriander.

The meal is most popularly eaten with naan bread rather than rice and in specialist Balti houses, this will be in the form of a large shared “table naan.” In the most authentic establishments, you will not be given a knife and fork but will be expected to eat the Balti by scooping it up with pieces of naan bread.

Balti is a deep dish in which the food is prepared. The curry differs from normal curries because the exotic collection of fresh spices and herbs are used, creating a thicker richer and distinctive flavour.

The truth is that the Balti actually refers to the dish that the curry is cooked in rather than the curry itself. The dish that it's cooked in is an Indian cast iron, round-bottomed wok with two handles calle a karahi. The curry is characteristically a meat (or veg) dish with a thick, spicy tomato-based sauce.

First things first, a Balti is a type of lamb or goat curry, although you may find variants using chicken and many other meats. If done correctly, you should always have it served to you in a sizzling, thin, pressed-steel wok that's called a 'Balti bowl' and it's this metal dish that gives the curry its name.