Is there any pre-made sauce you guys can recommend?

I'm going to be concentrating on the dough part first and just want something pretty decent to put on for the time being. I wateched this video by a pizzamaking.com user
 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=13454.0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_OZlp-6IBk

his dough from scratch vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGrkup9ZKwU

he uses a jar of mia cucina marinara sauce. Wonder if we have something similar. Seems tesco do some marinara stuff?

Real eyeopener the pizzamaking site, so many parallels with british curry

The use of onion gravy for the bulk of a curry is clearly the largest factor, but i know for sure that blindly following a recipe on here or elsewhere, will unlikely produce the bir flavour at home. I notice how many people new to making curries with base gravy, frequently report "better than their local" results, after only a few attempts, while grizzled curry veterans disagree. . Something wrong there.

I notice you say that a lot about new members, must be 3-4 times in the past week or so you've repeated that.

I've read many of the long threads here, been a lurker for 2 years and to me it seems a mixture of some "experienced" people have cracked it and some new members have while some new members report to not getting it right, wasting their money and never posting again disappointed while being encouraged to stick at it.

Some of mine lately have been lacking the aroma, depth of flavour. I thought my spices needed replacing but last night my curry turned out as good as the best ones. I seemed to go down a route of over doing the cooking. I changed a bit to keep it more liquidy throughout the cooking, not to dwell to much at each stage and really brought out the aroma and knew soon as I go that smell the curry would be good. Seems to be a fine line between spoiling the curry. I can see more how when chefs talk about preventing the spices from burning, over do it a fraction its gone.

Maybe some so called experienced are stuck on a way of doing things from years ago when less info was around, or can't actually cook, or don't see what is going on in front of them and know what to adjust on the fly. What is experienced anyway? Someone who cooks in general who maybe considers themselves good could easily not get the spices thing for years as its a lot different. Even more so when you get guys who don't cook at all before their curry quest but have been at it for years and seen as some curry guru.

One experienced member was claiming (can't remember the name) how he wasn't getting the bir taste/aroma. Many pages later in the discussion back and forth he actually elaborated that actually he was on about some mystical 70s taste and aroma and could replicate BIR/TA of today. I also read many new members who state they're trying something and never report back. So many dead end threads and posts on this forum. Then you have member jb has replicated everything, had lessons, does the spiced oil properly. Is he not experienced enough?

When I think of good curry houses, the chefs have been brought up cooking spices every day, they build up a knowledge and get taught from parents and know what's happening in the process. Your typical English curry quester hasn't and may never get it right most of the time, conversely he/she may find a way that works by chance and stick to it or is good at observing and taking in info to get better.

Reminds of italians mama's special sauce, you can spend years and never get close. Also when watching some Asian cooking programs, the elder parent said how it took 20-30 years to get as good as their parents.

Added a star aniseed to the base but didn't result in anything good, just slightly clouded the base, maybe toned it down a bit. Much more effective adding the aniseed in the cooking stage.

Forgot to add, with a new base I did some garlic ginger paste instead of garlic cloves and ginger whole and nothing changed or enhanced. I didn't expect so but read Bruce Chapmans thread I think, stating better results with paste.

Hi harley, this was just an obvious attempt at scaling up at home by an experienced home cook. At how many ltrs do you reckon the test becomes accurate?  12, 30 or 60 litre as in the restaurant vids. Does Bir gravy become bir gravy at 60 litres? or can it be done in say 44?
As for the tomato content, check abdulmohed's version on cr0, whichs uses 400gm tomatoes with 4 large onions. Some recipe's i've seen don't even use garlic in the base.

Regards
ELW

The discussion here was full scale, ie what restaurants do that we don't. Does it make a difference to our scaled down efforts. The distinction is small home vs your typical restaurant/takeaway. People cited haldi experiment as big base, full size, the thread title was making a full size base at home. If you want to say that the haldi thread was a scaled down version then its just like any scaled down version done here and doesn't need mentioning in reference to full size base and is just another scaled down base. Others, not me, have said perhaps from memory or poor reading how haldi did a full size base etc.

At how many ltrs do you reckon the test becomes accurate?  12, 30 or 60 litre as in the restaurant vids. Does Bir gravy become bir gravy at 60 litres? or can it be done in say 44?

Thanks for being silly.

Can you not grasp the notion of small home scale to what we understand to be full size? No-one is drawing a line. The question was asked does the large restaurant pot make a difference to our smaller pots. Can you not acknowledge that this means a large gap between the two without going into silly notions of exactly what litre it is?

Yes, probably a northern thing. Don't know is aniseed is a north west thing but I see it lot here, just adds a bit more to the taste, like a dash of lemon. You can take it or leave really.

Would be interesting if someone could lend a large pot for 30-40kg of onions who has a commercial burner in the garage. I've done 2-8kg and not noticed any difference. Some here have replicated their local base, quite sure jb has but don't know the scale his TA/BIR does though.