I still feel it could be clearer
I have tried loads of different brands and ,whilst they are consistant to themselves, they really are very different to each other.
The curry powders are nothing like each other, and neither the Garam Masalas
I think ground spices, such as cummin , coriander and paprika are all the same
What harm is there in saying " we use Natco" ?
Pete
Too right. It certainly could be a lot clearer. To my mind, this book and the web site Q&As are falling into a familiar pattern which reminds me of Pat Chapman (and Tony Blair actually!) i.e. promise the world and appear to fall over backwards to help. You get the impression before, or even after, reading the books that you definitely are on the same wavelength. These people will deliver. But the outcome, after trying the recipes, is very different. They are not telling the whole truth. They are holding things back, like half someone's question here, and the whole of my question to Kushi (BIR vs Balti taste), which never had a response.
It would be so easy for them to say that the chef buys 10KG sacks of a specific brand of spice and uses 50 onions for his base sauce, say. Let us scale it down, or see if we can buy the same spice in 100g sachets. I agree that the various curry powders are different. Therefore you need to know which one to use, or the precise DIY mix, like Bruce Edwards gives.
I also note they said in one Q&A that the base sauce needs to be quite neutral/bland (true) as a starting point for most other curries. So how come people here have reported that all the spices used give it a strong flavour? We know how to follow a recipe. Their recipe for base sauce looks wrong. It doesn't tally with their own Q&A response. I also laughed at another Q&A response where they said you need many years/decades of training/experience to be able to make good curries. Absolute hogwash. If you have a good, tested recipe, you can get most things right, first time.
Regards
George