I've tried different methods and variations on both themes: dry frying in oil of the core spices versus the "classic" Kris Dhillon method of wet simmering the spices in the curry base.

After 12 years of trial and error I've come to the conclusion that by far the best approach, in terms of restaurant authenticity, is Kris Dhillon's approach of wet simmering the spices.

Dry frying the spice core in oil gives, for me, too much of an intense and overpowering flavour which is a million miles away from any restaurant meal I've tasted.

I made a Kris Dhillon chicken curry recipe two days ago (still have some in the fridge) and it is clear that it is  as close as it is possible to get to a very good restaurant curry - as close as possible for a simple and accessible recipe and even much closer than more complex recipes.

So after 12 years and countless wasted or disappointing trials and errors - including futile searches for authentic supermarket or chilled curry base sauces - I am sticking not just with Kris Dhillon's curry base (with a carrot or two added) but also with her chicken curry recipe.

I do oil fry garlic and ginger (blended) before adding the curry gravy and I do add a decent curry powder (bought from Spice Mountain at Borough Market - also available online).

Sometimes the simplest and original things are the best. Just took me over 12 years to grasp it.

I have episodes 4 and 5 of Indian Food Made Easy (BBC2) but I missed episodes 1 to 3. Is there an online source for episodes 1 to 3? I have episodes 4 and 5 in wmv format.

I gave Kris Dhillon's curry sauce recipe to my "old man" and, embarrassingly, he used a bit of lateral thinking and risk taking to create a bloody good curry sauce.

Basically he added a whole jar of Sharwoods Madras Curry Paste (290g) to the tomatoes.

The result is better than I could have imagined and *almost* captures, spot on, the elusive restaurant taste. I say almost because the end result is a little too salty and too heavily spiced - perhaps 1/2 a jar or 3/4 a jar would produce a better result. But the elusive taste, which I identify as being heavily corriander inspired, is there.

Gareth.

After more than just a bit of searching I realise that I missed the obvious source for cheap diced lamb: the local supermarket!

Tesco sells frozen NZ diced lamb - 500g - for about ?1.68 which is very good value for money. The odd thing about the lamb (and also the frozen diced chicken they sell) is that it can be cooked from frozen.

It's very good value for money and the 500g bag of diced lamb (or 400g bag of diced "Grade A" chicken for about ?1.98) can easily service 2 people.

I actually spent months looking at expensive butcher prices and was coming to the conclusion that it isn't possible to get good value for money lamb in the UK.

Gareth.

Well, my last post asking about the Curry Sauce Company didn't get much of a response - which may or may not say something about the sauces!

I see that Pat Chapman informally endorses the sauces made by the following company:

http://www.madhuban.co.uk/index.html

Has anyone tried sauces from this company?

I intend to order some on Monday so if anyone's interested, come Tuesday hopefully, I'll give some feedback.

Gareth.

I tried a variety of sauces from the Curry Sauce Company a couple of years ago:

http://www.currysauce.com/

The company has a very good reputation but I'm at a loss as to why - the sauces, in my opinion at the time, were very poor and produced awfully bland curry.

Still, in hindsight my recipes using the sauce were also pretty poor.

Has anyone used the Curry Sauce Company sauces with good results? I'm looking for a lazy way out of making my own sauce base!

Gareth.