These links are quite a good read. The second and third being the results of a fake basmati investigation by the FSA. As you can see in the table (the third link) the results for each brand often differ between the quantities sold which makes things v complicated!
The uk food standards agency say that 'super kernal' is not an approved variety of rice but i think two people in this thread said it was the best they had tried. Very comfusing!

http://basmati.com/index.php?news=104&vote=5&aid=104&Vote=Vote
http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/fsis4704basmati.pdf
http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/fsis4704results.PDF

My girlfriend pointed out that the kitchen had a urine-ish smell lately which was also in the curries. I had been testing out hing again! It's definately a strange one. I think i'll only use it in madras from now on. It seems to work best and makes the madras a bit more individual.
I use a powder from a health food shop which states it is pure. That may or may not be true. It's pretty much grey with a tinge of yellow and smells so much i quarantine it. Quite like cat's wee.

Well done emin-j, good work! It's a different order of ingredients than i've seen before but the simplicity seems in keeping with what others have seen.
My favourite TA puts the methi in near the beginning too. I find you need to fry dry herbs (in any cuisine) to make their flavour come out. Much like spices. Adding them at the end like you do with fresh herbs doesn't give the full flavour and can make it musky.
Glad they use lemon in their madras.

JoshAllen, i dont understand what you mean by the difference between curry powder and spice mix. Isn't curry powder a mix of spices and isn't a chef's spice mix his powder to make curry? Obviously mixes like garam masala or panch phoran use specific ingredients but aren't these two just generic terms? I'm interested to know as i have always thought it was just a term that became popular by repetition on these forums, like 'base'.
I have made my own in the past but find it hard to beat shop bought brands.

That looks beautiful! I certainly believe that tasted spot on! Well done
I agree that the ashoka base works really well and that the secret is not really in complex spicing. I have been getting top results using shop bought curry powder. All just a matter of getting the balance right.

about 6-7 mins for me. I take a while to get everything ready though!

I like the method of cooking the onions, sounds tasty! Do you usually cook them like this?
Looking at the method i would imagine this had a key role to play in 'the taste'.

I believe it is caster/granulated sugar, coconut flour and (cheap) lemon juice.
They use the same technique in the fatima restaurant video, minus the lemon i think. They 'toast' the powders first too.
I now use this technique and it produces an exact BIR replica. It is very easy and cheap. It is a lot of sugar but then korma is sweet, which you will obviously have realized if you eat korma!
Remember that sugar is not very strong compared to the equivalents of salt, MSG or citric acid.

Experimenting ay? 
My mum used to cook us bobotie as she's south african. I really like it, very much a comfort food!
Lamb, milk-soaked bread, egg, raisins, apricot, chutney, curry powder. Pretty weird sounding but very nice. hmm, how was it?

Wow, a good effort there! I dont usually venture into side dishes!
Looks very nice 

Quote from: qprbob on February 27, 2009, 12:42 PM
Great video chinois
Watching you cook that Madras is a great help. Well done to the camera woman as well. It looked that good, I could almost smell it coming from the monitor.

cheers bob!
I found some of the videos i've seen misleading as they were slowed down, apparantly for easier following by the viewer. In my opinion this adds to the confusion so i wanted to try and replicate how it is done in the restaurants. Obviously they each vary but i wanted to highlight the speed and heat generally used.