Balti Triangle · One-Pot Curry
Balti
Photo: ayes / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0
The word balti means 'bucket' in Urdu and Hindi, describing the pan it's cooked and served in; Birmingham's claim to have invented the dish is widely accepted but disputed by those who trace it to Baltistan in northern Pakistan.
Meat, vegetables and spices are cooked fast over high heat in a flat-bottomed, two-handled steel bowl, then brought straight to the table still bubbling, to be scooped up with naan instead of served with rice. Birmingham's Balti Triangle, around Ladypool Road and Stoney Lane, is lined with restaurants doing exactly this.
Why it's made this way: Kashmiri and Pakistani immigrants who settled in Birmingham from the 1970s adapted home cooking into this fast, sociable format for a wider audience, and the city is widely credited with inventing the balti as a restaurant dish.
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