I'll give it another go. Thanks guys , I'll let you know...

I will try it again. It found that it started to happen a little when I didn't stir but then the curry would stick to the pan. I guess I'm just not doing it for long enough, or maybe I'm cooking it too gently. SnS's photo of when it fuses looks exactly how I want mine too, so I guess I'm on the right track. How long would you say it takes to get from adding the first sauce to this stage?

This is by far the closest I've come to a genuine BIR curry, but I'm still having a major issue. What I can't get is that fusion where the curry darkens and the oil seperates. This for me is part of the BIR madras as I know it. I've followed this recipe exactly, and have tried to gently fry the sauce but no seperation. I'm wondering whether maybe the problem is that I'm not heating the pan hot enough before adding the first ladle of sauce. Any suggestions?

I'm about to try this recipe, but I notice there is no cardamom. In my local BIR they definitely use cardamom pods, so if I want to use them should I put them in base sauce or in the curry later and how much would anybody recommend?

This is an awesome post. I only started making BIR curry a few weeks ago and I'm really not far off. I found that the hotter the wok when the ingredients are added the better the taste (using CA's madras recipe). The problem is that even if I make a runny paste with the spices, they get close to burning pretty quickly. If using this method, how do you avoid burning spices, or tomato puree considering how hot it has to be? I assume adding water to stop the spices burning will lower the temperature?

Hi everyone I just joined and I'm finding the forum really useful, my thanks to you all.

I've seen recipes outside of this forum that use curry leaves and I'm wondering what they are and why none of the recipes on this site seem to use them?

Thanks everyone!