I cooked a couple of curries tonight. On the left is Coriander Chicken, on the right is Chicken Madras.

The Chicken Madras was OK but the Coriander Chicken was restaurant quality. Smooth, velvety and tasty. You can see the difference in volumes. Smaller volume but greater intensity is key to BIR in my opinion. This site is a great teacher but experimenting is the only way to reach BIR quality. I don't do it consistently but every now and again I cook a good curry.

Beef Madras.

This is my beef saag.  I don't know how BIR's do saag but this was cooked in the BIR style and was fantastic.

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/food/daring-thieves-wash-down-curry-feast-with-coronas-at-sunshine-indian-restaurant/story-fneuz8wn-1226697913665

Last night I cooked a "perfect" lamb saag 

I used pre cooked lamb from a leg that I boned, cut up and marinated in yoghurt and spices overnight then in the morning took it out of the fridge and let warm up for three hours before cooking with onions and spices in the slow cooker all day.

I used my interpretation of the Zaal base gravy and my own mix powder blend and some freshly made ginger/garlic paste. For the saag I used frozen spinach that I cooked with some base and pureed.

My wife and I are seasoned Indian restaurant goers and she agreed that it was just like a restaurant curry.

The funny thing is, I cooked it after an afternoon of drinking home brew beer (beer and curry go together?) and winged it without thinking too much. I've experimented enough and watched enough video's on here and youtube to kind of "know" how to cook a curry and I think this approach of not thinking too much and using instinct while cooking instead of following a strict recipe resulted in a good result. At least this time 

I wish I had of taken some photo's and I will next time. Anyway I'm a happy curry cook today!

Yours in curry,

Damian.

Hi.

My names Damian and I'm a 41 year old curry enthusiast from Gold Coast, Queensland.

I have been eating restaurant curries for about 20 years and have been cooking my own for about as long. They started out as chewy, horrible bits of shrunken beef in a tin of Pataks sauce but have become a bit better now.

I am right now cooking my first base sauce which I will be using to make beef saag tonight for me and the wife. I am also precooking some beef chunks to go in it. This weekend I'll be making chicken vindaloo for a mate and myself. He's a big vindaloo fan and we had a chef at a local restaurant making a great vindaloo for us but he unfortunately is now driving taxi's. Before he left the restaurant he did show us the whole spices he ground down for his spice mix. He had a "big" bowl of whole spices and he pointed them each out to us but I didn't pay enough attention at the time. He's a good bloke so we're hoping to get him to give us a cooking class.

I am having a great time reading the posts on the board and think it's great the lengths you guy's are going to to create great curries.

Damian.