Mustaqs in Hamilton is worth the short drive out to great service really well priced and never had a bad curry. He does some limited editions every few months to keep it interesting too.

There are a lot of topic on what you need to make your own tandoori,Garam Masala and various other spices mixes, with regards to giving yourself control there are additional topic on the spices themselves
It takes time and experimentation to find the balance of what you prefer. Using any shop sold "spice mixes" will give you a BIR taste. But as you said yourself "individual taste". i have two mixes i use because the Mrs like a milder aromatic taste, where is I prefer a more Fiery Curry. so mine has additional paprika hot chili powder as appose to the mild i use in heres.
If you want to use shop bought spice mixes make a simple dish and use various mixes to see what works best for yourself. personally after making my first base gravy i added the spices individually to a small amount of gravy to assist me in understanding the flavors of the individual spices you could possible do a similar thing with the spice mixes.
 

I replaced the Oil with Gee is a like the flavor and texture more than oil i only use use the recipes as a guide and try and put my own little stamp on it. have have made many curries since joining up last year and thought this base was a little thinker than usual i assumed it was because I went off chewwys recipe and added additional items. next time I will leave it a bit longer  and hopefully improve once more thanks you for the tip once i have finished this base i plan to try something new i have book marked Elanchi North Indian Special as a when im a bit more adept to try.

there are a few other i am interested in both your work and darthphals are on my to do list along with 976bar's Garlic chili tikka bit not being a massive fan of lamb i will have to make it with chicken.

P.s next time i will follow your rice to the letter as even with my faults it was still very good rice and rice has always been a problem for me.

Ok so tonight's meal  was the best yet. the base i used was a bit of a mash up from here using chewwy tikkas base ingredents with extra carrot that a took from darthphalls base with the additional gramma massala. adding some of CA's tandoori and masala mix. turned out to be a very sweet tasting hint of curry style broth that on its own is good enough to eat.

cooked


Blended


Sived
Then following CA madras recipe removing the chilli from it I made one large mild madras that I then split into two adding chilli to one and Uncle Bucks Pathia mix to the other (with the help of DalPuri in the trainee section)

both of witch turned out fantastical the pathia especially, better than my local BIR.
unfortunately my spicial fryed rice (following Curryhells recipe) was not so good i burnt it a little and used a bit to much gee. but still it was more than edable and my poor skills should not deter anyone away from his rice besides the extra Gee and hint of charcoal the rice was extremely tasty.

In addition u followed CA's Sheek kebabs and once again a fantastic recipe and easy to follow instructions.


Kebab mixed


Cooked


The meal


the brother inlaws plate

This meal was all about trying out the new base and spice mixes while giving pathia my second attempt,(the first was a massive fail ended up unedible).

And most of all to my Good friend Hairybiker a massive thank you for introducing me to this site the amount of knolage and weth of reading material has turned me from a curry failure into someone that can make a mean curry . and I owe it all too you Guys and Gal's.

Now what to cook next?? any suggestions 

thanks to CA and Chewwy tikka my curry's have been coming along leaps and bounds. finally learning to chance the spices to suite my tastes and needs.

Pathia has always been a favorate dish of mine i plan on using a hybrid of daths and Chewwys base(not because i love starwars honistlly). slightly tweeked CA spice Mix and tandoori massala.

and uncle Bucks Pathia mix

Pathia mix

100 ml hot water
25g coconut block
3 tsp tamarind
2 dsp sugar

Now for the questions i have the Tamarind as a block de shelled and compacted. How would that translate to 3 tsp?? i know i must leave it soak in warm water over night so is it 3tsp of the remaining liquid once the seeds have been removed? or an approximated value of the tamarind pre soaked? or am i a million miles away and should of bought the paste form (bit late for that now btw).


in addition to this only a very small amount of the pathia mix is added to the curry is there a safe suggested way to store the excess mixture? ie sealed jar or frozen and if so what would be the shelf life of such a product.

I do apologize for the amount of questions just everything has been going so well not a single bad curry since i joined. (a friend of mine hairybiker suggested the site to me) I dont want to break the cycle as my confidence in the kitchen has been going from strength to strength.

P.S once again a thank you to everyone who has contributed to this site my self and my extended family really apreciate all the help and recipies (even if i do take a little credit for myself .

Kind Regards

The CurryNoob