Hi Brian, well youve finally hit the nail right smack bang on the head.
I've watched the guys load the vans belonging to restuarants at the cash n carry in Bristol - what do you see?? -  chilli, tumeric, coriander, paprika, etc, etc, etc.......

I said months, months, months ago - there is no secret ingredient in restuarant curry - your right - its all here on the site. Someone who still posts here regularly suggested i didn't know what i was talking about, well that's maybe because i've only been doing it for about 25 years.

As far as i'm concerned - pooling the info found on this site, i have finally cracked it, yes I'm there at last - and yes i have learned a lot from lots of different poeple's ideas. In fact, I still wouldn't be there if I had never found this great site.
Many thanks to all the hard workers on this site for offering their opinions and helpful ideas.

Joe

My opinion is (and has been for a while now) that the contents of the base is almost UNimportant. As long as it contains onions - the rest has little bearing on the final curry.  Although, if it doesn't contain garlic/ginger they will have to go in at final cooking time.

To me, the curry is made at final cooking time. What goes in then(and it need'nt be very much) dictates your curry.

Many of course, will disagree - well this is just my humble opinion.

In my opinion, if you really want to copy a BIR curry, - forget all about vegetable(or butter) ghee. Or maybe just keep some for those nan breads.

I'm now using only a smaller amount of spices and there is a definite improvement.

I'm very pleased with the improvement I've made since the forum started, but I don't use anybody's base im particular, but a little bit from different recipes, although it's closest to Bruce Edwards's, - minus the dreaded aijwan seeds of course.

If mine never gets any better, I will still always be happy with what I've now got.

blade1212
Re:earlier post - apologies, I thought you were a newbie(telling us your curry was outstanding) - (A'hv hud a good few roobies in Gibson Street, masel)

>>however this base is outstanding !!>>


Don't forget - this is merely Blades opinion.
Ten years ago I made curries that I thought then were fantastic - just like as good as a restaurant.........

I'd like to make the point that in this recipe - and it sounds like a good one, there are no unusual or so-called secret ingredients.  In fact in almost every recipe that comes up - even those directly from BIR's, the ingredients are the virtually the same as what we first started with.  We've moved on, in experience and technique, but the ingredients are still basically the same.

I posted about 2 months ago categorically stating that there are no secret ingredients in BIR curry, it looks like it's been proved to be correct(although some people didn't seem to like what I said).

I'm not trying to make me sound clever(because I'm not), it's just that I knew for certain then, and I'm even more certain now.

The quicker people forget - msg, mollases, ketchup, worcester sauce, OMG, and crack on with using only what BIR's use i.e. everything that we use now, the quicker we will arrive at our goal.

Some people may not like this but:
I strongly urge the members of this forum to forget the whole idea that 'this can't be done at home'. - I know it is a great excuse every time your NOT overjoyed with the curry you've just cooked. But it simply CANNOT be true.  Sure, all the BIR chefs and bosses would love us to think that - and I don't blame them at all, it's their livelyhood.
As long as we accept this (that it can't be done at home) rubbish, we will be hampered continually, because there's always that excuse for failure, when the truth is that we still have a bit of work to do yet.
My curries have improved dramatically since this forum started.  If that correlation continues, then I will be even better at some time in the future.(logic)

Oh by the way, can someone give me one(or more) good reason why, I would tell you excactly how to cook something at home - which I continually charge you ?7 for?

That's quite interesting blondie, none of the restaurant chefs seem to have mentioned it either.  I'm begining to think that the only spice we need is 'restaurant masala'

>> Generous helping of very well cooked onions >>

My only concern about this is that all the best currys i've had are a very smooth gravy, with no 'bits' in it at all.

Other peoples' currys may have bits in though.

Re: The taste we desire can only be achieved by cooking in quantities.

Ok, here we go.  I don't want to offend any of the lovely people on this forum but, this whole idea is ridiculous.
Well not only ridiculous but it defies logic and inteligence.  How can you not take a quantity of any ingredients and divide by 5, 10, 20 or 30 or whatever and not expect to get a similar result?
To me this train of thought is some kind of excuse we are using in desperation at not getting the results we desire.

Come on folks, we will find the answer somewhere, somehow. But let's not bark up the wrong tree. That's just wasting time and effort.

Many people may disagree with these comments.  Sorry, I just try to speak the truth as I find it.