Here’s my latest curry recipe – this time a saucy chicken dish with loads of fresh veg. The portions here should comfortably be enough for four hungry people – can probably stretch to six mere mortals.

To start, get a big pan, fill two-thirds with water, and add a splash of vegetable oil. Then, scoop a pint of basmati rice from your sack, and plonk that in the water. Cover and leave; soak time is valuable – if at all possible do this a few hours before you start to cook.

Next cover the bottom of a big pot with oil, and dump a load of Madras paste in there – it’s sticky stuff and I put six heaped tablespoon full in. Stir it all up and leave on the lowest heat setting you’ve got.

Now it’s time to prepare the bird. Chop into typical curry-house chunks and stir into the paste and oil. Should look something like this:

Next, peel and prepare three medium sized onions, the best part of a bulb of garlic, and a decent sized knob of ginger. Thouroughly blend this lot up with some coconut milk and add it to the chicken. Add some ground coriander, cumin and garam masala and get the hob straight up to full heat. Get frying – while that’s happening add some chopped cauliflower.

Don’t let it fry for too long – we don’t want dry chicken. While that’s going on (don’t forget to stir!), blend 8 fresh tomatoes and 4 fresh chillis. As soon as the chicken looks cooked, add the new blend.

Let it bubble away – add some chopped peppers too. Turn down to a nice low heat. You can hold at this point for quite a while if you need to, only continue when you’re about 15 minutes away from wanting to dish up.

Fire up the rice! As I’ve mentioned before, if a scum builds up scoop it off with a spoon. Rice should be gently twirling in the water – not boiling too furiously (too hot), nor stuck at the bottom (too cold).  Rice needs constant attention to get it right. As soon as the grains aren’t hard in the middle, it is ready.

That should be that! Happy eating…

It became apparent yesterday that the 330d had a sticking rear right caliper – apparent because after a journey of only a few miles, the brakes were really juddery and the rear right wheel was what could only be described as ‘bastard hot’. This morning I leapt into action – grabbing new rear discs, pads and sensor from the Woking ECP. The chap there was super helpful, advising that I check that the hose hadn’t collapsed before assuming that the caliper was at fault. I was pleased to return at 9:30am with this haul:

I was pleased that nothing was seized, stuck, rounded or rusty; everything came off a treat.

I’d been advised to check if light passed through the hose in order to determine whether or not it had collapsed. I couldn’t do this, so returned to ECP with both the caliper and hose to see what the chap there thought. With the aid of an LED torch he proved the hose was okay, and so a caliper was ordered – to be available from 2:30pm – bonus! So, back home and time to do everything else I could.

Shiny shiny!

An all too familiar sight…

I enjoyed a spot of lunch from the BBQ while watching the world cup opening ceremory. The chap was right – the caliper was ready at 2:30. So, back to it:

I bled the brakes off and verified that nearly everything was fine. The handbrake didn’t work. I noticed while changing the rotors that the old shoes were pretty worn, and in a desperate attempt to tighten things up at the handbrake end to allow me to get back to the world cup match, I’ve snapped a cable. Grrr!

So in order, I should have:

• Slackened off the handbrake at the lever before trying to remove the rotors
• Adjusted up the shoes properly from the rear of the car
• Stuck to my principals and refused to work on a car while the world cup was on

So I’ve booked the car in to have new shoes and a new cable fitted on Tuesday. That’s pretty pricey, but the shoes definitely need replacing, and I wouldn’t want to do that myself (especially during the world cup!). I’ll be very pleased to know all the rear brakes are renewed. While I’ve replaced the rear pads in September 2008, the rotors looked pretty old when I got the car over 50,000 miles ago, so it all certainly needed doing.