what base have you made?  making a sauce from that base, needs you to pick a recipe. The recipe you pick should be one which is proven to work with that particular base. eg. the sns base and sns madras work together, or CA's base and CA's vindaloo work together.

making a good curry sauce is where the fun starts. its taken me 2 years to be able to make a solid madras sauce with or without meat. (just the sauce)
a good sauce depends on:
1) cooking technique
2) how well prepared the base is.
3) getting the spice mix right
4) knowing when to add e.g some extra garlic, or chopped onion, or bell pepper
5) knowing how much to evaporate the base (reducing the sauce)
6) heat and oil content
7) fresh ingredients,
adding stock such as lamb stock
9) not burning anything at any stage (garlic, spices, )
10) practice!

even after 2 years i can ruin the sauce if just one step is wrong. if the base is slightly wrong , the rest will surely fail.

Hi Paul, i will try this base at some stage. i know its a good one. keep us all posted of any developments? is there a madras recipe to go with it?  thats the acid  test  of any new base!!

so why did i drop worcester sauce? good question. As i learnt more about the taste i was after, i could taste it was taking me further away from the taste i want. leaving it out was an improvement for my madras. however it took a few months to discover this as it is tasty stuff. but not bir madras style, to be honest. hopefully new members can read this an not make the same mistake. WORCESTER SAUCE IS NOT PART OF THE MISSING TASTE OF TRUE BIR MADRAS. there are better ways to sour a curry. eg lemon. 

hi chinois, sounds like a nice bit of oil reclaiming going on in your kitchen. good effort mate.

Hi chinois, yes i get the odd waft of bir in my kitchen, but not quite the same as that from some of the top notch curries i buy. i will try the spiced oil approach some time soon. although i am loathe to go down that road, as it adds more preparation to an already long list of stuff to do each week. (base, garlic puree, spice mixes, marinades, feck !!  ) you know the drill !  so i wont bore everyone !

hey guys, its good to know that i am not alone in adding lemon to madras. for me madras should be hot and sour and garlicky lemoney, with a little coriander leaf + stalk. and lots of tom puree is a must.  i have ruled out worcester sauce, sugar, coconut, too much tumeric, (tumeric is for boona)  ghee is a no no for madras.  thats in my opinion! i know there are many versions of madras.

yes good idea to try tarragon. there are numerous other spices in many indian grocers i am curious about.

For me there is one huge missing thing. namely the smell that real TAs give off. especially the good bengual ones. i have never had a smell like that in 4 years of trad indian cookery, and 2 years bir cookery. when you remove the lid off your TA, bam it gives off a unique unmistakable odour. what the hell is that? a vegetable? surely it cant be from a dried spice? or can it? its not the base, as i have purchased real bir base from a top bengual bir. and my curry tasted the same as normal. oddly they had pumpkins in the bir kitchen i visited? although i doubt its significant.

40 pounds for a curry , thats shocking !! i did once pay 20 for a posh thai curry. i must admit it was actually worth every penny. delicious.