Made this last weekend with CA's base. Was awesome. My favourite dish to order at my local restaurant is "Chicken Methi Masala".
This Methi recipe tasted better than the restaurant, only thing missing which i'll add next time is some pre-fried onion and I'll never eat curry out again.

I was intending on taking photos, but just got carried away with the cooking as it was my first time.
I'll certainly take photos next time.

It was quite suprising how easy creating the base was. Just glancing at the ingredients looked a little overwhelming at first, especially when you take into account the extra bits and pieces you need to make the final curry. When I wrote down the shopping list it turned out I had the majority of ingredients in the cupboard already. Was only missing a few things. Chopping up, peeling and weighing only took around 20minutes. It was quite nice to just be able to sit down and fire up the PS3 while the base was slowly bubbling away.
The cleanup was a killer though, splattered sauce all over the place during the making of the final curries. Well worth it though.

Made this base over the weekend. It was my first ever base sauce and foray in to restuarant style curry cooking.
As I mentioned in an old post I've been wanting to create a base but worried about the quantities.
I just halved CA's base and followed his instructions to a T. The base looked exactly like CA's photos.

With the base I made a Chicken Methi curry (as that is what I always order at my local). It was pretty much spot-on, the only thing I'd say was missing in the dish was some pre-cooked almsot caramelised onion which i'll be sure to add next time.

I ended up going through the entire (half qauntity) base in one day trying different combinations of spices and ingredients much to my mrs dismay I trashed the kitchen but even she loved the curries I was churning out.

Confident to go ahead with the full quantity of this base next week and freeze some up. Wish I hadn't left it for so long.

Thanks CA.

Also in Australia, when you mention an Indian Takeaway it's commonly associated with Indian Takeaways found in the food courts of shopping malls. Never had a good curry from a shopping mall. Appears as though it's just huge batches of different curries cooked the traditional way and stored in the fridge. When the shop opens each morning they grab it out of the fridge, microwave it then pour into a large stainless steel dish at the shop front.

Doesn't look the best during lunch time rush when they run out of a particular curry and someone comes out from the kitchen with a just microwaved plastic bucket full of curry and pours it out into the container in the shop front.

Thanks for the advice Razor.
Looks like i might try halving CA's base and see how I go.

Hi,

Been reading these boards for some time now but have not got around to making a BIR curry. I've tried Emin-J's curry from scratch which was awesome but I'd now like to get into BIR style. After some thought I realised the reason that I haven't yet made a BIR curry is the fear of messing up the base and tossing out a whole pot full of ingredients or turning out ok but not having the space in the freezer to store it. With limited freezer space and little confidence in creating a huge batch of base, can anyone recommend or point me to a base recipe I can try which will make about 4 serves of curry that I can 'practise' with? I originaly thought I'd just halve some recipes but going off some comments I've been reading on these boards it's not that simple.

Appreciate your help.

Some of the stories above made me laugh.

My first curry experience was at work when a colleague photocopied a bunch of copies of a local Indian restuarant's menu. I picked "Beef Vindaloo (VH)" as I liked the description but paid little attention to the (VH) part.
So I get my Beef Vindaloo and take in 3 big spoons of the sauce. Within half a minute my face was apparently red as a tomato and I was in so much pain I could for some reason feel my heart beat inside my ears. I ended up getting through it with each spoon containing 3/4 rice and 1/4 vindaloo. The next day the song 'Ring Of Fire' by Johnny Cash came to mind quite often.

Turns out (VH) stood for Very Hot.

Hi,

Just after some advice on frying powdered spices. I've seen a few recipes that call for frying powdered spices in oil before adding the rest of the ingredients. I'm wondering how this is done exactly?

what purpose does it serve?
At what heat?
for how long?
how do you know when they are fried adequately?
would it be obvious if they get burnt?

Appreciate any info as I've tried this a few times and not sure if I'm frying them for long enough in fear of burning.

thanks.

Called a few different spice shops in the area and none of them stock Rajah products, most of them suggested Kitchen King Masala as an alternative.

Ingredients are as follows:
Coriander, Chilli, Turmeric, Cumin, Dal, Fenugreek, Pepper, Salt, Cardamom, Ginger, Cinnamon, Cloves, Nutmeg, Mustard, Garlic, Mace, Asafoetida.

A little worried about this, based on the ingredients do you think it would be ok to add this as a substitute for Rajah Madras powder?

Much appreciated GuitarMan and Emin-J.

I'll see if I can find Rajah Mild Madras at my local Indian store,  hopefully they stock this product in Australia otherwise will have to find an equivelant.

Looking set to try this recipe on Friday.

As suggested I will add the following:
Cumin and Coriander powder and swap the onion for red onion.