I must agree it does change the taste of a dish and as someone who cannot help but put it in to everything I am glad I am out of it for a while.
Very rarely can I stick to a stock curry IE a madras. I tend to open the cupboard and throw everything I find in it and lately I have tried to stop diong this.

Last night I slipped up by making what should of been a madras but with the addition of a fair amount of new potatoes and okra thrown in. I mainly do this to bulk the up the meal to make it last for a few days but I rarely post a picture to this site as all my dishes end up as hybrids.

I too make good use of the Ahmed chilli pickle and find it is a safer bet than Mr Naga.

The only trivial issue I have found is it's a tad difficult to differentiate between the stalks and leafs when its in it's frozen state.
No problem, just snip the top, The stalks reserved for a base!

Had me on the edge of my seat throughout Pod.
I'm tempted to get my other half to read it but she's glued to an Emmerdale hour special at the minute so I'd best not risk it. 

Your in the right place Ray, I stalked a few other sites over the years before I found this one and was kicking myself for not coming across this in the first place.
I honestly believe you will not find better.
The amount of information is mind blowing so I would suggest to not get sidetracked every five minutes as I have done many times...
Welcome.

That certainly is one fantastic picture. 
Do the girls still walk about with Tshirts on during this type of thing...
If so I'm on my way over! 

Just putting the shout out really... Asda are knocking out 10k Kohinoor basmati for 9GBP. I'm not familiar with this brand but my local Asda have got a mountain of bags of it as soon as you walk through the door.

I'm out of my Badshah so may be picking some up.

Edit: On second thoughts whilst writing this to conform my information was correct I came across this webpage which seems to be around 9 months ago, so maybe not such a good deal after all?
http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/kohinoor-10kg-basmati-rice-only-4-asda-instore-1106216

Sorry, couldn't help throwing this one in... Rioters stoop to new low!

Well I do apologize for the following but it had to be done!
The best bit is the last...

Garabi

Well I got finally got around to making a base in this soup maker, I followed Chewys advice and approached it as follows...

100ml Oil
2 Tbs of G&G
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Haldi
Quarter slice of green capsicum (chopped)
Same amount white Cabbage
Half a Carrot (chopped)
1 green chilli
3 medium Onions (grated)
100ml Water

Once it has sweated down nicely and looks cooked
add 1 tsp Tomato Puree
add 1 Tbs Mixed powder
and top up with boiling water
Set it away cooking again for 10mins

There was a few adjustments in times and settings as follows

I initially thought the machine could only be set to 15 Min's at a time but thankfully I was wrong and it can be set to 30 Min's max.
Of the three heat settings 'high, low and simmer' I found that the middle one 'low' was the only one that achieved a simmer and it cuts in and out to regulate this.

After the first 30 Min's the onions were reduced down to the 1Ltr mark, I gave it another 30 Min's before I blended it but the occasional stir function which has to be pressed manually seemed to of made a good job of breaking it all down in the mean time.
The machine has a mark stating that no hot liquids should be used above the 1400ml mark but as it was on a tame simmer I chanced filling it to the optimum fill mark of 1750ml when I added the spices and gave it another 30 Min's... An hour and a half in total!
When cooled I then topped it up the last 20ml left in the blender and used the stir function to mix, It yielded just under 2Litre's.

The base was just as good in taste as any that I have made yet and definitely better than quite a few I have made primarily because it was a lot easier  to gauge what i was doing at this volume of contents.

I still do not have the eye for or skill to judge exactly how much to add to get the right consistencies at the higher volumes I have been recently making, the results have been coming out OK but it has been a bit of hit and miss.
This way I was more than happy with the consistency and taste... All in all it was an all round winner and I will be doing this again.

My only means of videoing this was with an ipod and the only thing really worth seeing was the finale texture of the base which is only a 30 second clip so when I manage to edit it I may post it here but in the mean time here is a photo of the resulting madras I knocked up with some pre fried onions and peppers a chopped chilli and no coriander. Again taken with my ipod and lifted from a 'vid still' and 'screen capture' on pc so not an ideal image.

Thanks for your help Chewy.

Thanks SH, I accidently left my first base on for around 4/5 hours. Thank god it was on the lowest setting my cooker had but it turned out surprisingly good. As I mentioned, it was my first so I was probably just amazed that I had made this!

I recently have gone over the mark I do believe as when I get the sweet onion smell and all looks good I am tending to give it another hour. the smell seem's less intense then but it is probably me getting used to it.

Could anybody please tell me if it's possible to over cook a base.
I don't mean as in burn it I mean is leaving it the longer the better or will this impair the flavour or would it even improve it?

EDIT: I am referring to the initial melting of the onion stage?