There is NO secret ingredient in restaurant curry. There should be no further debate on this even.
In St Marks Road, Bristol, the CASH n CARRY, used by most of the restaurants in the South West  of England has its doors open to the public every day of the week.
You can go in and buy whatever you like, you can also see the assistants constantly loading sack trucks to take to vans belonging to the restuarants. You can inspect whats in their load. Its just all the stuff we already use. I,ve done it many times.
BUT, there is still a secret of tequnique or something else maybe. - Because I,ve been trying for over 20 years and still CANNOT make a curry that TRUELY tastes like a good restaurant or take away. 

I was expecing some kind of feedback about the health risks of using re-heated oil or fat, but this post seems to have changed to a discussion about TASTE again.  hmmmm....

This topic has come up on another part of the forum.
Seriously folks, this is a very important issue. I think we should all look into it and see if its ok.
About 2 years ago, I read an article on this subject on the net, and it was frightening.
All I will say is that the doctor blamed this action for many of the woes of the western world.? This of course was only his opinion.? But if we are to be making curry a lot and for years to come, I think it would be worth clarifying.

Bet that was a great experience, but its a shame you missed the making of the base, as we seem to have nominated the 'secret'of the making of the base as priority number one.

The curry bases on this site are very good - and the effort made by some of the people is titanic, but I think we all know that its still not quite right for some reason. 
I'm quite happy to continually use the bases we have forever, and i'll always be reasonably contented, but - equal to a good restaurant curry TASTE ?......... well no.
The Holy Grail is when we can truly say that our curry is indistinguishable from our favourite curry house.  Lets keep at it. However, well done everybody, - of course especially Pete.

Re:Pataks pastes. Ive watched the restaurant vans load at the Indian Cash n Carry near me, they nearly always have some big jars of Pataks pastes. eg. Kashmiri Masala, Balti paste.  Pataks pastes are legendary and would enhance most currys Im sure.
But as said above, beware the jars of Pataks ready made sauces - they really are disgusting, I read a poll on the net, of ready made sauces and out about 6 sauces, - every taster placed Pataks at the bottom of the list.

Hmm yes, very good, does it contain a recipe for SPAMMMMMM curry, by any chance?