I know what you mean CK, they look at you with a strange mix of puzzled and bewilderment. glad its not just me who had that

One thing to bear in mind is this: if you ask the bir chef for a 'hand' cooking a decent curry, they usually give you a very helpful account of how to cook a traditional curry. this is because they would never in a million years, imagine you have a base sauce bubbling away on the stove! they find this whole idea very strange. consequently you need to either ask subtle questions aimed at improving the bases on this site e.g safron base. or ask questions about direct ingredients in a e.g bhoona. maybe its worth mentioning in the email, that you know a simple base recipe, but need some help with madras recipe, and tips to improve the existing base recipe. hope that helps DD.  

Thanks jerry, thats a bit clearer now. It also explains why the bir tom puree is watered down. i must start doing that with my new tub of white tower. i actually compared the taste of white tower puree to standard, sainsbury tubed tom puree , and they are very similar. both quite sweet. so anyone who cant get white tower, should not worry about using a good supermarket tom puree, as its dam similar. although white tower is best. luckily i work near 6 indian grocers, and am practically tripping over tubs of pataks, and white tower tins every lunch time!

the steps on this thread are great. however i dont get where the water is added, and at what step? or is the adding of the base + its water content = to adding water. Are you suggesting adding water to hot oil, during the initial 4 minute cooking process , at start of knocking up a curry?

Thanks for the positive feedback Jerry. i will add that spice mix to relevant section shortly. Some thing i find interesting, is that the bir has a separate whole tub of ground tumeric. it must be really important to justify a whole tub, right next to the cooker. the tubs by the cooker are only for frequent use ingredients. Next base cooking sesh,  i will do a tumeric based curry, and report back.   

Nice piece of kit Haldi! i notice lots of aromas in the bir kitchen that i dont get on my electric cooker. Does the xtra heat produce those aromas? Do the usual ingredients we all use, start to take on new, interesting flavours? Cheers DD

i am now thinking that without the full bir gas cooker setup, we need a 'workaround ' method to achieve the taste. perhaps the reclaimed oil will be a winner. would the oil from the standard safron base recipe be adequate?

does anyone on this site have the full gas cooker hob setup, with big orange flames etc etc? i thought i read that someone went the whole hog, and bought one?

i cant swear by this, but i am sure i asked my local bir if they recycle oil and he said no. the madras i saw cooked definately had fresh yellow veg oil in it. they did use oil from the deep fryer for the balti dish though. that oil has lumps of green pepper, onion, popadoms fried in it. is there not a quick way to make reasonable spiced oil ?

Go for it anyway Jerry, just watch what they do, and pay a few compliments, and dont worry about the language barrier. Once the dish you have ordered is cooked, you can thanks them for the demo, and exit swiftly. No chit chat required! if we all ordered a madras each week, and watched how they cook it, we would have it cracked in a few weeks time! how good would that be!