you could reclaim enough oil from that madras to keep all the members of CR0 happy for years  ;D. The coriander looks suspended in oil, barely touching the curry !

After trying many shop curries i would say tesco and sainsbury finest range are quite good. some of these are from sachets that require some work. some are from jars and are good on the odd occasion. however cooking a good traditional curry from scratch or making some base and using a tried and tested bir recipe is always more fresh tasting with loads more toffee taste.  unfortunately there are no short cuts in this game. i guess taste buds are not easily tricked ! 

Thanks Josh, i might try that idea next.

Has anyone tried dry roasting the spices to see if it improves the spice mix? How much difference does dry roasting really make?

I read that garlic and oil should be good for a week in the fridge at most. it depends if the garlic had the botulism on it in the first place. most garlic wont, but some will on the rare occasion. the botulism is from the soil, which then gets on the garlic. this is rare, but you are fxxcked if you do get it, very nasty. i no longer store my garlic paste or oil with garlic for more than a week in the fridge. maybe freezing the oil is better??

watever !  ;D  no but seriously the bir restaurant industy seems to use a lot of pataks tikka paste and kashmiri paste so they cant be all that bad tasting. but basically i do agree with all your comments. i always feel much happier if i know the curry is all my own work. right down to the individual spicing. as well as bir cooking i do plenty of traditional indian cooking and feel this teaches how to use spices properly. to really get the best taste from spices they need 2 or 3 hours of slow cooking in a curry sauce. bir cooking makes this hard. but hey i like the challenge. i would say i cook bir style 70 percent of the time as its such an awsome technique. once you have the base sauce its so quick to make a curry.

While i dont use pataks paste much now my cooking has progressed, i always thought they were a cut above the other crap sold in supermarkets. eg uncle bens etc. personally i like the pataks approach of bold hot spicy pastes full of flavor. I guess some people prefer their curry mild, and hence find pataks OTT.

If this forum cannot agree and replicate or disprove this old oil theory then whats the point of it all? i have no experience of making bhajis and popadums as i have been too busy with madras, rogan josh and jalfrezzi etc. i think i need to learn how to make them , and then start building up some old oil for testing purposes. how many members have tried using old oil they have managed to produce at home?

There must be a way of making oil that has some of the right properties at home? some members must have oldish oil from all those bhajis? we need some confirmation. what about old chip oil. i have plenty of that.

i think bir chefs often add some pataks paste to tom puree with lots of water to make a nice runny paste that wont burn at high temp. they flash fry the runny paste for 30 secs. this possibly adds something, i am not sure. its a simple easy tomato masalla, they use with balti, ctm, jalfrezzi etc etc. this i have seen first hand. some dishes require more of the masalla than others. madras is not too much. rogan josh is quite alot. 2 tbs i guess. i am sure any good madras powder could be used if you loathe pataks.