6 cans of tomatoes. Guy must be keen to promote the Irish Tomato industry 

The most notable occasion when I had several dishes that tasted very similar to each other was at an Australian restaurant a couple of years ago when 3 curries were almost identical apart from the meat ingredient, chicken/goat whatever. I guess that came from the base.

In AIR cooking a number of separate bases are prepared - Madras, Butter, Vindaloo, Nut and so on and are much more intense in flavour than UK bases. Each base is used for a particular "family" of curries. That's all well and good if you order say a Madras, a Butter Chicken and a Vindaloo, but as happened to me if you order 3 that happen to be in one "family" you can get a sameness.

Point I'm making is that in the case of those 3 curries (forget exactly which ones) if they had been done on in a BIR kitchen they would no doubt all have tasted quite distinct despite the use of a common base, as more distinctive special ingredients would have gone into each finished dish. So "one base makes them taste all the same" is BS.

They look like this and are "cabbagey" in flavour but turn out really tender when cooked, like UK Spring Cabbage or "Spring Greens". I'm sure you would have them in Germany - sort of a smooth Kale.

Edit:
oops forgot to include photo

This series has just been on TV in Australia, missed the first couple but the Sri Lankan episode was great, and this week he was in Bangla Desh and travelled from Dhaka to Sylhet where he reckons most of the families came from who eventually set up the BIR restaurants in the 50s and 60s.

We saw a few dishes being prepared, the Biryani was brilliant looking although no chilli of any description. A few of the others looked a bit "meh" to me. For example the ladies doing a big pot of ground shallots, Garlic and Ginger, tomatoes, some turmeric, cumin, salt and that's your base. now chuck in a heap of potatoes and some fish pieces, some coriander leaves and a few green chillis and simmer it.

Struck me as the sort of curry I would make years ago when I only used Turmeric, Cummin, Coriander and Chilli and everything turned out a shadow of BIR (or AIR).

Later at Sylhet he bumped into several English guys of Bangladeshi descent who were back on holiday to visit the rellies and they all reckoned that Bangla Deshi food is rubbish and BIR is the best 

Certainly an eye opener.

Edit: when I worked in Brisbane in a part of town called Fortitude Valley which comprises Chinatown, but quite a lot of Indian and every other ethnic group gravitates there as well, there were 2 Indian lunchtime cafes right next to each other. One served "real" Indian food - usually 3 vegetarians such as peas and panir, lovely rich curries that only had potatoes and pumpkins as a base, variations on "Chole" etc. with a magnificent veg biryani on offer most days - plus Dhosa and puri to blow you away.


Right next door was a Lamb Madras, Butter Chicken and Beef Vindaloo joint. The latter was always full of Indian Students, taxi drivers etc and while the "genuine" place got its fair share of business the Indians and Bangladeshis seemed quite at home eating the AIR offerings. Wonder if there's a bit of a folklore myth happening about how BIR / AIR is something that most people in the Sub Continent would sneer at.

In the photo on the site what are those "tuk tuks" parked outside? I thought 3-wheelers died in the UK with the Reliant Robin.

My Okra is now producing, along with my curry leaves and chillies, all grown in tubs.
Felt like something vegan to start the day, so a quick fry up - took about 20 mins from garden to plate:

The Sri Lankan curry powder also contains my own ground dried red chillies and curry leaves. The jar is GGP I made and there's also black cardmoms which got cut off in my photo.
AArrgghh sorry about quality of first two shots, still trying to get to grips with "Paint.net" resizing