These discs are absolutely the best place for a newbie to start!!  The curry base is very simple to make and tastes good on its own.  This is the first restaurant style curry base I attempted.  The DVD was very motivating too!
I will get the mint sauce this weekend and give the CTM a try with it when I make it with chicken.  I think putting the mint in the chicken tikka and then adding it to the curry will tie the flavors together.  Yes, you need to be very careful with the dried methi!  I added a bit and let it cook up and then added more - there was too much methi taste in it then!  But I didnt mind it too much - but next time time will use much less.  It takes time for the methi flavor to infuse into the CTM so better to add little and cook it. I tasted it soon after adding it and didnt taste it at that time and added more.  But a few of the CTMs I have had in england had dried methi in it for sure.
I cant explain the creaminess of the CTM sauce - like nothing I ever cooked before!!  It was velvety almost.  I have added cream before to many gravies but never got a result like this before.
This is a great place to start for anyone interested in making a BIR style curry!!!

I have watched these DVDs (thanks to Ray - thank you again!!) and they really give a nice step by step description of the recipes.  it is nice to be able to compare what we cook to the recipe.
I made the base sauce for the first time yesterday.  It was very tasty on its own - hard to believe that black pepper can add so much flavor and warmth to the dish.  Its great!  Simple to make and doesnt have a boiled onion smell since it is cooked with the lid on.  The thing I did differently was heat the oil first adn add the onions for 1 minute on a low heat and then I added the other ingredients.  Took away a tiny bit of rawness from the onion but they were still totally white and not even translucent in that time.
Today I made the CTM without the chicken as I am not a fan of any meat.  Basically I heated the base and added fenugreek leaves (dried) to it as that is what I have noticed in the restaurants.  I may try a bit of mint sauce in it next time once i get it from the store.  I then added the cream and cooked it up a bit.  The result - a very smooth beautiful tikka masala sauce!!!  I didnt add the coloring so my sauce was more orangish instead of nice and red.  The sauce was very tasty and just like I have had at restaurants.  Now here is something interesting, I used oil that I had fried in one time, for my base sauce.  it gave it the restaurant smell right away!!  Do you think restaurants put the leftover spiced, reclaimed oil back into the base sauce that is cooking for the next day?? Wouldnt that add more depth and flavor to the base sauce and that way any reclaimed oil wouldnt get spoiled or wasted?
Just an idea...my base sauce had that "pungent", strong restaurant smell just from using oil I had fried my gulab jamun in!!

I highly recommend bombay aloo too...i recently made it for the first time and it is really tasty!  They dont have it in the indian restaurants in the US - at least none of the hundred I have gone to have had it!
About the gulab jamun..i looked at the recipe in the curry secret book and it looks pretty good - see, the milk powder i used here in the UK was funny and crumbly - not fine like the US ones are.  I used a recipe that said to use heavy cream and non-fat milk powder, by using full fat milk powder, you dont need the heavy cream.   So I think if you follow the recipe from that book, it should come out ok.  I forgot you were in the US - that makes a big difference with the ingredients.  You dont have to worry about trying to find the right conversion for baking soda/powder (the recipe used self-raising flour) because i am told the UK ones are a different strength to the US ones.  Most of us "americans" bring the baking powder from the US to use in US recipes to avoid disaster!
Please let us know how it turned out - I am interested in giving it a go once i get the proper milk powder from the indian stores here.

funny you asked about gulab jamun because i attempted them for the first time yesterday evening.  They didnt rise (double) like they were supposed to when added to the syrup and i had troubel making the dough...i had seen my mom make them hundreds of time so I know something was not right.  I made the milk powder recipe with heavy cream and couldnt get a nice pliable dough no matter what I added to it - it was all cracking all over the place and they came out rather solid rather than nice and squishy.  I dont recommend it as something to try for the first time and then entertain - better to experiment first.  I noiled them in the syrup for 15-20 to get the syrup through to the centers - they are almost mush now!  BUT, they taste amazing!!!!

No wonder!  I am looking all in the UK for that brand since I used to use it in the US!!  That explains why I cant find it here.  Just use it as it is.  No need to stir - with the temp of the kitchen, it will fluctuate between more solid and more liquid.  It is all the same.

My dad "grows" the seeds by letting some of the coriander plants keep growing and the ends turn to seed eventually..that is what we grind in a coffee grinder and use!  That seed can also be planted again.

This is an indian ghee!!!  SWAD is a huge indian brand in the overseas market (away from india I mean - I am not sure about india itself)!!  I have been buying some Plough ghee but would prefer the Swad one as it is in a bottle.  Where did you get it from?

yes, us americans call cilantro, coriander - they are 1 and the same. 

Ray,
I really appreciate the effort in typing all that out.  I just had 1 question as someone else asked, is it Coleman's mint sauce that you use?
I cant wait to try the recipes out.
Thanks once again Ray.
Payal

Is it possible to some of you have tried the recipes from the Balti Kitchen DVDs to post the recipes?  I am especially interested in the CTM recipe from there.
Thanks.