Calum Franklin’s recipes for balti paratha pie with spicy green chutney

This is one of my all-time favourite pies, pie born out of the Midlands. While studying at University College Birmingham, the now head of department at the college of food there, Lewis Walker, and I were in digs together and regularly ended up in very late-night balti houses after big nights out. These pies remind me of that really special time. It wasn’t much before my university days when balti cooking emerged in 1970s Birmingham, apparently created as a way to appease the British palate of the time. Its roots are in Pakistani-Kashmiri cooking and the base of the curry always has to contain tomatoes, onions, peppers and chillies, although variations can be built on those foundations. They’re a wonderful celebration of multicultural Britain.

Balti pie

Enjoyed on football terraces across the nation, the first balti pie is thought to have been served at Walsall football club in 1997, and they are now sold at more than 70 football grounds throughout the UK. There is a version of the balti pie that not many know (or have even considered) outside the UK, but it is the stuff of dreams: the balti pie barm, or whole balti pie inside a soft bread roll. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. You will need a nonstick 12-hole muffin tray.

Prep 15 min
Chill 15 min
Cook 2 hr
Serves 4

6 chicken thighs on the bone
Fine table salt
1 tsp medium curry powder
1 tsp garam masala
½ tsp ground turmeric
½ tsp chilli powder
½ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground cinnamon
70g butter
1 red onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 green pepper, deseeded and cut into small cubes
1 garlic clove, peeled and chopped
2cm piece ginger, peeled and chopped
400g tin chopped tomatoes
1 tsp tomato puree
200ml chicken stock
1 heaped tbsp cornflour
Zest and juice of 1 lime
10g fresh coriander, roughly chopped
16 frozen roti paratha
1 egg yolk, strained and beaten with 1 tsp water, for egg washing
1 pinch each nigella seeds and fennel seeds, for topping

Heat the oven to 210C (190C fan)//415F/gas 6½. Put the chicken thighs in a roasting tray, season with a pinch of salt, and roast for 25 minutes, until cooked through. Leave to cool.

Lower the oven to 205C (185C fan)//gas 6. Scatter all the ground spices over a sheet of foil, then put the foil in the oven and toast the spices for 10 minutes. Turn off the oven.

Meanwhile, melt 50g of the butter in a wide-based pan. Add the red onion, green pepper, garlic and ginger, and cook on a low heat until softened.

Add the toasted spices, cook for a minute, then add the chopped tomatoes, tomato puree and stock. Bring everything to a simmer on a medium heat, then reduce the sauce by half and turn off the heat.

When cool enough to handle, strip the meat off the chicken bones and chop it into small nuggets.

In a small bowl, mix a tablespoon of cold water into the cornflour to make a slurry, then stir that into the sauce. Stirring continuously, bring the sauce gently back to a simmer. Add the chopped chicken, mix well, then add the lime zest and juice. Taste to check the seasoning, and add a little salt, if need be. Fold through the chopped coriander, leave to cool to room temperature, then chill in the fridge.

Use the rest of the butter to grease eight holes in the muffin tin. Take the paratha out of the freezer and, working swiftly, roll out eight of them to about 11cm. Line each greased hole in the muffin tin with a rolled-out paratha and fill three-quarters of the way with the balti mix. Lightly brush the exposed paratha with a little water, then use the remaining paratha to close the pies, gently crimping the edges together; don’t worry about being too neat – I like to give them a rustic look. Chill the pies in the fridge for 15 minutes.

Heat the oven to 220C (200C fan)/425F/gas 7. Using a sharp knife, cut a small hole in the top of each pie, lightly brush the tops with a thin coating of egg wash, then scatter with the nigella and fennel seeds. Bake for 30 minutes, then serve hot with the green chutney below for dipping

Spicy green chutney

A fresh yet heady dressing that is so easy to make. It complements the balti pies superbly.

Prep 15 min
Makes 150ml

1 garlic clove, peeled
2cm piece ginger, peeled
1 green chilli
½ tsp cumin seeds, lightly toasted
Juice of ½ lemon
60g fresh coriander, leaves picked
40g fresh mint, leaves picked
1 pinch fine table salt

In a blender, blitz the garlic, ginger, chilli, cumin, lemon juice and four tablespoons of water, until smooth. Add the coriander and mint leaves and a pinch of salt, then blend again, until smooth. Store in an airtight container in the fridge, where the chutney will keep for up to a week.

• These recipes are edited extracts from The Modern Pie Maker: A Mouth-Watering Journey Around Britain in Eighty Recipes, by Calum Franklin, published by Bloomsbury at £26. To order a copy for £23.40, visit guardianbookshop.com