For sometime now my curry's although good have been missing that savoury but not over spiced taste like my local BIR's,I have tried by gradually adding more and more spice mix to emulate their flavour but my curry's just ended up being over rich to the point of being sickly

The talk on the forum lately is of Jalpur Garam Masala (ifindforu) being a 'must have' plus the use of whole spices has been mentioned and I must admit to being a bit of a fan of Garam Masala and the wonderful flavours from using whole spices,and it got me thinking

1, We had Indian neighbours a year or so ago and as I was parking my car on the drive I could smell the most wonderfull aroma BIR x2

I had to go around and ask what they were cooking,It turned out to be a Lamb curry from scratch and they offered me a taster straight out of the pan ! Kapow ! what a flavour, and that aroma,I asked what gave the flavour and aroma ' Garam Masala ' was the answer.
2, I once asked at my favourite T/A if I could watch my curry being made and to my surprise they said yes ;D
one of the questions I asked was what spice mix they used and was told ' that is chef's own Garam Masala'
and it was said in such a way I didn't feel I should pry any more :-X but looking at the mix it looked like just GM coarse with no sign of turmeric etc etc and this is what went into all the curry's (maybe not korma).
So tonight I thought I would experiment with some whole spices and see what flavour I could bring out in the final curry.
Using from frozen 2 portions of C2G base,approx 600ml I placed the frozen base in a saucepan and put the gas on the lowest setting as it started to melt I added 3 green cardamom (crushed), 3 cloves, 3 Asian bay leaves (the fragrant variety) and half a star anise. After a while it was up to a simmer and the aroma was wafting around the house,bloody lovely
Went on to making mine and the Wife's usual Madras and only using a teaspoon of spice mix (due to the whole spices in the base) and then tasting to check on salt level there it was

the most fantastic savoury tasting curry I have ever made and to be honest slightly too savoury but definitely the taste I have been missing and definitely the taste of most of the T/A in my area.
For me the search for the 'secret ingredient' is over but working out how BIR's get this much flavour into their curry's without using whole spices is my next challenge,are we back to that Garam masala thingy again

Just try what I have said by adding the whole spices to your portions of base (not your main pot of base for now) but I cant stress enough you use the right bay leaves (fragrent Asian not the European rubbish).
Onward and upward