SS I reckon at least 75% of the questions on the forum he been asked before over the past five years so nothing new there  Anyway haven't you got better things to do on Xmas eve Santa 

Merry Christmas to all and may Santa fill your stockings with Turmeric and Chili  ;D
And a CurryTastic New Year all.

I understand how critical the amount of Spice added to a Curry has on the final taste but I've only seen BIR Chef's use a ' Chef's Spoon ' to add Spices.

As 976bar mentioned and I have wondered myself , do you think it possible that back in the 70's Indian Curries were not so popular as now so there may not have been a need for a Curry Base and the flavour of the 70's Curries may have been from a ' Curry from scratch method ' ? Perhaps this is why we can not seem to recreate the smell / flavour of the 70's Curries because we use a ' short cut recipe ' Base Sauce . 

Dirk ,
Be carefull blending hot base sauce with a hand blender , I did some a few weeks ago 8ltrs ;D and I had about a cupfull of boiling hot base fly out of the pot all over my bare arm and some on the missu's back  I also had some ' mush ' on the bottom of the pot but just kept blending until smooth but you need to rest the blender quite often .
A jug blender makes a better job of blending but can be messy transferring from pot to blender.
Buy a jug blender then reblend your remaining portions.

Quote from: JerryM on December 21, 2009, 10:13 AM

Quote from: Secret Santa on December 20, 2009, 08:53 PM
I put that down to the fact that it doesn't use any tinned tomatoes.

Quotein non curry cooking i was told by a chef to always sieve tin toms whenever using to take out the seeds which are bitter.

ps forgot to add my fav's

i know that all good bases show up as very little difference in the final curry taste. so the why is probably down more to personal taste or preference. ease and speed are important to me and i tend to stick to 3 which i rotate everynow and then (saffron, rajver and mytake).

Interesting point that JerryM 

Excellent informative post CA , I would go along with almost all of your top tips , except 

Spicing

I started my Curry Quest using the SnS base and Madras recipes and immediately had excellent results  However I don't bother looking at the recipe now as I have made so many Madras Curries with the recipe I just go onto autopilot  ;D but recently ( past 5-6 Curries ) the wife and me have both agreed the Curry was tasting too rich and we have struggled to finish them , yesterday I decided to look into the reason why and for starters rechecked the recipe . I immediately realised I had been trebling up the amount of Spices whereas the recipe calls for 0.5 tsp of ground Cumin / Coriander I have been putting in more like 1.5 tsp of each thinking more is better  : All this does is give the Curry a much stronger deep flavour being over rich for our taste , yesterday I stuck rigidly to the recipe and the Curry was peeeerfect.

Top Tip.
I feel you need to ' balance ' the amount of Spice in the main Curry with the amount of Spice  is in your Base Gravy AND follow the recipe  :

Spiced Oil.

Not necessary , our favourite T/A doesn't use it and they turn out the best Indian food I've tasted .

Clean Pan .
Top Tip.

I get better results using a clean frying pan for each portion rather than  start a fresh Curry with the remnants of the previous one in the pan .

Quote from: Secret Santa on December 18, 2009, 08:41 PM
I dare say most of you have already seen these videos but if you haven't they're well worth a watch.

In particular this one caught my attention: http://www.kitchenstreaming.com/play.php?vid=111

It's the jafflong lamb vindaloo, and how simple is it?! Reminds me of what Pete used to say (where is he by the way?) that some of the curries he saw made were little more than a few ladles of base and some meat or veg. Well, here's proof that he was right.

The ingredients are:

Garlic
onion paste
chilli
lemon dressing (GRRRR!!)
base sauce
coriander leaf

Quote
Now, tell me that that ain't a real test of how good your base is - assuming, of course, that their vindaloo is edible!

Pass 

Quote from: Secret Santa on December 18, 2009, 08:05 PM

Quote from: gazman1976 on December 18, 2009, 07:36 PM
in my opinion the best base on here is the SNS 2008 base

That has to be a nod towards regional differences then because although SnS's base is useable it is, for my tastes, way too tometoey. It leaves no room for variation in the final dish.

Which Base would you recommend as the best ' allrounder ' SS.

Secret Santa , Unlucky for me I had my first Indian Curry in the late 80's so it sounds like I may have missed the best Curry years  : previous to this were my Chinese years 
However your comments about Spiced oil etc on the two occasions I have watched a BIR Chef make my Madras , your right neither of them used Spiced oil BUT the Curries were fantastic tasting to me  and if I could replicate that taste on a regular basis I would be more than happy