.......and was written 20 years ago and doesn't profess to be a British Indian Restaurant/Takeaway cookbook

They look great - go you deliver to South West Scotland? 

Before I found this site, I found another one and made a batch or two of their base sauce.

4 x Big onions chopped up roughly.
50 grams unpeeled fresh ginger chopped up roughly.
50 grams peeled fresh garlic chopped up roughly.
6tbs vegetable oil
1tsp heaped salt
240g (small) tin of chopped tomatoes
1tbs tomato puree
1tsp turmeric
1tsp Paprika
2tsp Coriander powder
2tsp Fenugreek powder
2tsp Cumin powder
2tsp Garam masala

Method:

1. Fry the onion in 1tbs of the oil for 10 mins on a low heat until soft & translucent (don?t let them brown as this changes the taste).
2. Add in the garlic, ginger and salt then add enough water to just cover the top of all ingredients.
3. Bring it up to the boil then turn down to a light simmer uncovered for around 30 minutes.
4. While this is simmering, put the rest of the oil (5tbs), the tomatoes, puree, turmeric and paprika into another saucepan ? bring to the boil then simmer for 10 mins on low heat.
5. Let the 2 mixtures cool down then blend them both separately until they are super smooth.
6. Combine the mixes and bring to a simmer.
7. Add the coriander, cumin, fenugreek and garam masala and leave the whole curry base to simmer for 15 minutes.
8. You need the final sauce to end up being about 1.6 litres - if it's not, add water to this volume now and if there?s too much keep simmering to reduce.

I'd be interested to know if anyone has tried this one with any recipes on here

I bought this book, back in the day, before the Interweb and all that stuff. I prob (sic) still have it.

Never really made much, if anything, from it - so can't really comment.

Things have moved on a lot since then, I guess. Pat, bless him, was maybe making the first attempts to emulate the taste and texture of the restaurant-style curries of the day. Maybe he succeeded. Maybe not.

I think that restaurant curries have moved on a lot in the last 20 years and perhaps good old Pat was ground-breaking in his day - maybe we should show him more respect for attempting to achieve what we are attempting to achieve now........with similar success it would seem.

I also bought, I think, Pat Chapman's Restaurant Curries. I made a few attempts at his Pakistani Curry Gravy as a base, but found it a bit underwhelming.

Pat's ok - give him a break. He tried - his heart was in the right place

Oops - ignore that. Found it too

Where did you find it Les. I'm keen to give it a go, or at least use the marinade.

That looks lovely Rob, if a little oily

It looked pretty basic and unoriginal to me.

May I just say, as someone who has joined very recently, this site seems to be full of in-fighting and people trying to sell recipes in the guise of 'e-books'.

I don't think I'll be here for long

I'm just new here and this has maybe been brought up before, but am I the only one who really doesn't like the stuff?

If there is too much of it in a curry, I find it totally overpowers the dish and ruins it.

Cheers,

Garp

Thanks for your kind comments guys  ;D