It’s been a long time since I made my own authentic curry paste so I thought I’d give it a go again and a trip to the wonderfully fragrant Indian specialty food shop worked out very well. I purchased my spices for NZD $6.36 and considering this recipe makes about 1 pint/ 2 1/2 cups of curry paste and I have three quarters of the spices left it worked out very inexpensively, what a pleasant surprise!
Ingredients
1/2 cup coriander seeds
l/4 tbsp cumin seeds
1/2 tbsp fennel seeds
1/2 tbsp fenugreek seeds
4 dried red chillis
5 curry leaves
1 tbsp chilli powder
1 tbsp turmeric
2/3 cup red wine vinegar
1 cup oil
- Grind all the whole spices to a fine powder.
- Spoon into a bowl and add the remaining ground spices
- Mix to a thin paste with vinegar and add 75ml/5tbsp water
- Stir fry the paste in the oil for 10 minutes or until the water has been absorbed. When the oil rises to the surface, the paste is cooked.
- Cool slightly before spooning into sterilized jars.
This is the end result.
[...] 8, 2008 by Amanda This is a wonderfully fragrant curry made with the curry paste from a previous [...]
Looks great.. did you use fresh curry leaves?
Hi Kay, thanks for your comment. The curry leaves were frozen fresh, it’s a great way of storing them for later use
I must be doing something drastically wrong as all my spices just burnt really badly during the stir frying – I followed the instructions exactly – any ideas? I thought maybe the oil might have been too hot but without the heat the water wouldn’t burn off. I’ve ended up with dark oil and crunchy burnt spices…..
Hi, thank you for your comment :0)
I wonder if my use of the words ’stir fry’ could have been misleading because I know that generally stir frying is done on a high heat. Also perhaps some woks are different metal than others and therefore affect the cooking time?
From memory it wasn’t very high when I made mine, on a medium heat, and I kept stirring it constantly, but maybe some spices are more absorbent than others, it’s something I’ll have to have a look at.
Possibly if you put the paste on a lower heat it would work? It might take longer but it would be worth the wait.
I hope that helps? Let me know how you get on?
The smell was intoxicating, really great, but the taste didnt hold up. However, I’m thinking this may be a time issue, as I used the paste directly after making it. In your experience, is it better to store it for a while before using it?
Yeah for sure, storing any curry for a while and it gets better. I used mine about a week later so I’m guessing that’s why the difference.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting :0) Let me know how it goes!
Hi,
I’m a bit confused by your amounts… how can 60ml of something be a quarter of a tbsp, 30ml be half a tbsp and 15ml be a whole tbsp?
As the ml measure is being reduced, the tbsp are getting bigger!
Help,
David.
Hehe, me too. I was never any good at maths so I’ve edited the amounts to the easier more general weights etc. I hope that helps :0)