Just finished helping my daughter at the craft market in Brum’s Cathedral Square and lots of takers for balti bowls for Santa’s sleigh.

However, it was interesting that the other products on sale included hand painted tiffins and amusingly(and worryingly) quite a few people thought they were baltibowls! 

This just illustrates how important it is to keep the Birmingham balti heritage alive although, on the flip side we also met a lot of people who were passionate about a proper balti.

For some years I’ve banged on about making Balti ingredients more diverse and thanks to top Balti chef Zaf, owner of Shababs, I’ve.started the experimental process A few weeks ago we used duck from fresh but I must have been quackers because it was not only a bit tough but its consistency meant that the duck never took up the taste of Zaf’s wonderful sauce.

However, moving on, I bought some diced goat from Moseley Farmers Market. Zaf part cooked it as he would mutton and the end result was a fabulously rich dish with the strong but tasty flavours of goat being complemented by Shababs balti sauce mix. Mind you , given the prices of the farmers market (8 pound for a small pack of diced goat meat) it would be a premium priced dish but, to my mind, it would be a price worth paying!