I totally agree Phil, there are some members who post and post several times on a daily basis and others who choose not to, each to his or her own, isn't that allowed ?, what does stand out is that some members who post a lot seem to obtain a following on the forum that anything they post is the bees knees, when to be quite honest I have found that some of it is pretty bland , but I choose not to comment as it's up to me, isn't that what these Forums are all about personal choice, this forum is moving in the right direction though at a slower pace than I thought a few years ago, but if you google any recipe in any cuisine it will come back with thousands of results, no one Base or recipe is going to be the Holy Grail here but it's taken me a lot further than the KD curry secret book that i got in the 90's.

Here in Thailand the supermarket chains cook plain rice and fried rice then place it in polestyrene container or a plastic bag and put them on the counter where it sit's sometimes for many hours at store temperature, they also cook bbq fried and roast chicken, pork ribs, sausages fried noodles and many other dishes all left on the counter as well, I have eaten all of these foods and reheated them in the microwave at home and have never been ill, what gets me is that most of these supermarkets are foreign brands such as Carrfour (France) Tesco Lotus (UK) BigC (France) where in their home markets they would not dare do this because of the food regulations and the bacteria issue with regard to health, so I am baffled that if this practice is so dangerous in the West why don't they care or worry about it in the FarEast in their own stores, have we become over cautious or perhaps we all have weak stomachs when compared to the Asians.

Well got a reply from the book website,

Hi,
thanks for your enquiry, no i have no connection with the Curry Crunch Takeaway at Inworth Walk Colchester

so that has blown my theory out of the water, the comments jb made sound promising, some cookbooks have an introduction from the author so maybe he will post some info when he's had time to look at it more, might just go ahead and buy it anyway.

Your right, my 'O' level geography didn't cover the Indian sub continent very well did it, anyway I have sent the takeaway a mail  and the booksite a mail and await any response.

I'm just saying that if you look on the book site Butterfly prawn is mentioned as a starter recipe and is sold at the Curry Crunch takeaway as well , so he is probably proud of it on his menu, the book site also mentions learn to cook Kashmiri and Indian Takeaway and the specials at the Curry Crunch Takeaway just happen to be Kashmiri, I must admit the Curry Crunch is such a common curryhouse name I put it up there with The Rajh ,Bengal lancer and Tajh mahal, I'm going to send the contact at the booksite a Mail to confirm if they are one and the same ok.

I'm going to send a Mail to the Curry Crunch booksite to see if they are connected with the Curry Crunch Takeaway in Colchester, I hope they are.

I think you might have jumped the gun there haldi questioning the credibility of the Author, if you look on the Amazon page there is a link to another website which is a curryshop at 37 Inworth walk Colchester called the Curry Crunch the same name as the book so I think it is safe to assume that the owner/chef is the author of the book in which case we finally have a book written by a real restuarant chef, not the deliveryman or gifted amateur , maybe a member who has used this  takeaway can comment on it or  or can go check out it's quality for us, the link to the shop is here http://www.currycrunchtakeaway.co.uk/  , As I have not read the book I cant make any judgement on it's contents but hope to hear soon from any member who does as the overseas postage really bumps up the cost to me here and I don't like to waste money, I hope the base in this book isn't full of onion Bhaji oil like the last book I brought.

I tried this base a few months back but I found that it smelt and tasted very strong on spices and heat (chilli) and never achieved as good a result with the finished curries as some of the other bases on this site, though I have to admit I prefer medium to mild curries rather than vindaloo or phall's, it's interesting that everytime someone tastes a genuine bir base on this site they mention how sweet and mild it taste's, maybe I should have watered it down more.

Any chance of a scaled down version for a generous single portion curry, I want to try one of these Chasni's but dont want to be stuck with lot's leftover if i mess it up or don't like the taste, unfortunately the Thai wife doesn't like Indian curry, like most Thai's there is something about the smell that put's them off, which is so funny when I once had the pleasure of watching a pot filled with live frogs being boiled and a couple of hours later they couldn't get enough of it, just in case your wondering they broke the little sod's legs before they chucked them in the pot to stop them escaping all I could think of was frog pee soup.

Cheers Pete, sorry to ask maybe dumb questions , but is it 1 table spoon of ginger and 1 tablespoon of garlic or is it this new fashion combined 1 tablespoon of both that you use.