MEDIUM. Cooked with fresh tomatoes, garlic, ginger and garnished with fresh coriander and selected spices. Balti is more a style of cooking than one particular curry, developed in Birmingham twenty or thirty years ago. There are a number of theories on the origin of the term Balti, some say Balti describes the cooking pot and others say it refers to a style of cooking that evolved in Baltistan, somewhere on the North West frontier. The word balti can be translated as “bucket”. A balti pan is basically a karahi which has the shape of a Chinese wok but with 2 small round handles on either side of the pan instead of one long handle. In specialist “Balti Houses” the balti is a meal in itself which contains both meat and vegetables and is eaten straight from the karahi using nans, Chapatis and Parathas. In standard Indian takeaways, the balti is more of a stir-fried curry containing plenty of fried green peppers and fresh coriander. choice of meat: