Reviving an old thread here to say I just tried this and it turned out fabulous. Very similar in fact to the jalfrezi at my favourite restaurant (The Clay Oven in Ealing). A few notes:

- I used the Saffron base, which is what I use for most now.
- I didn't have any pre-cooked chicken to hand, so I just simmered it in the base with a little extra water while I fried off the spices and other stuff. This effectively means the chicken stock is already incorporated with the base when you add the whole lot together.
- I scaled down the chilli content, as my family are not very heat-tolerant.
- I halved the lemon juice - it can be very over-powering and takes away the other flavours. I reckon you probably leave this out altogether, or maybe just a few drops.

Like I said, turned out great. I think the key ingredient here is the amchoor, which is certainly what gives the dish its distinctive flavour, the same as in the restaurant. Surely a classic recipe this one, so worth a bump here.

The reason I've held off so long in trying that recipe is because I'm not a coconut lover either and having read some replies in that thread, I'd cut the amount too (or could I miss it out altogether?).

IMHO coconut has no place in a base sauce, and I have proof that it's never been used in any of our favourite dishes from any of our favourite restaurants. How? Because my wife is allergic to it, and breaks out in a hot rash at the slightest exposure. This means she avoids curries like korma which explicitly include it, but it also means it must be absent from the base sauce where she has eaten other dishes without any problem.

If in doubt, leave it out 

Hello Everybody, and thank you for such a wonderful forum.

I've been a BIR curry fan since my teens (about 30 years ago), but have only recently got into cooking them for myself. I'm pretty clued up about some other styles of cooking (particularly Cuban food - my wife is from Cuba), but I'm a relative novice when it comes to curry. I had a go with Pat Chapman's book back in the 80s, and with a few other recipes, but I kind of gave up after while, as the results were always pretty disappointing compared to the excellent restaurants I've always been lucky enough to go to.

Then, relatively recently, my interest was rekindled by a desire to copy a particularly wonderful and smoky Butter Chicken from our regular Friday night haunt, the Clay Oven restaurant in Ealing, West London. This has motivated me to do a lot of research into authentic curry-making in the last few months, which ultimately led me to this forum. Actually, given the number of articles, recipes and web sites I've encountered I'm quite surprised it took as long to get here as it did - the forum seems to be below the usual Google radar for some reason.

But this place appears to be the best curry resource by far on the Net, and I'm looking forward to reading, learning and discussing this passion with you all here. Another friend has recently got into curry-making with some pretty good results so far, and I'm sure he will be keen to join in as well.