currygall , there is no "right" place to start. Pick a base and work on it. There is no doubt that a base must be matched with the recipes. You can't mix n match.

Quote from: adriandavidb on November 29, 2007, 11:46 AM

It may or may not suprise everyone that chefs use some interesting ingredients, such as sugar, worchester sauce and tinned tom soup in some of their constructions!!

adrian , it doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

Quote from: Cory Ander on November 27, 2007, 08:46 AM
It has the taste and the smell (pronounced) of a typical BIR curry, but it's not up there with the best of them...

Is this a recipe you've posted Cory Ander? I can safely say I have never reproduced the curry smell as I remember it and I've made a lot of curries using a lot of techniques. Are you getting this only with this particular curry or with every curry you make?

You get around a bit don't you Cory? Anyway some good recommendations there and reasonably close to me so I might try some after christmas. Thanks.

Quote from: lorrydoo on November 27, 2007, 08:58 PM
...But there are so many pit falls, i.e. what I think is my dream BIR curry might be total rubbish to someone else.

Precisely my thought lorrydoo. So presumably four members or so would have to taste the curries from the restaurant or takeaway before taking the plunge and handing out readies for the curry secret?

I think it would be far better to do it in the restaurant exactly the way they would do it normally. You would need to see every packet of spice to be sure there was no funny business (well you never know do you?). If this means that in the first instance that we have to cook in restaurant quantities, for the base anyhow, then so be it. I'm 100% sure I could subsequently knock the base sauce down to managable portions without compromising anything.

Thanks for the suggestions chaps. I think I've got more chance of getting to Nottingham than I have of getting to Southsea but you never know.

I definitely used to be able to have a curry with the taste and smell in most places I visited on or before this date. After this, well, as the years go by there appears to be substandard slop served everywhere. Do any of the older memebers know of any places that still make curries like they used to? I don't.

Please recommend one if you know, I'm prepared to travel a bit for it.

Quote from: chilli head on November 23, 2007, 05:28 PM
The chef where i worked made his own garamasala this is very important...

And yet the restaurant where I was given a tour of the kitchen had no garam masala whether of the bought kind or the home made kind. Strange.

Quote from: Graeme on November 22, 2007, 06:22 PM
you cant do it, its in the fabric...
you need to buy the carpets and furniture.

Yes I'd have to say that we're (or at least I am) not talking about the smell of the restaurant. It's the smell of the curry itself. In the old days there was no mistaking it but now, well it seems to have disappeared. RIP "taste" and "smell".