Curry Pastes

So...

Once again Jamie Oliver has thought of something great.  And once again it works brilliantly. He has recipes for several different curry pastes, they are great and can be used in many different ways. I have made two recently, a Korma paste and a Rogan Josh paste. I used the Korma paste in a Biryani and the Rogan Josh as the base for a Vegetable Curry.

The great thing about these pastes are how easy they are to make, whilst there may be quite a few ingredients if you have a reasonable spices stock then it should be easy. Remember if you don't have the exact ingredient try another, experiment and see what you come up with. The method is easy, put the spices and other stuff in a small hand held blender and mix until it looks pasty.

So I will give you some of my favourites so you can have a go :)

For the Korma paste

• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 thumb-sized piece fresh root ginger
• ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon garam masala
• ½ teaspoon sea salt
• 2 tablespoons groundnut oil
• 1 tablespoon tomato puree
• 2 fresh green chillies
• 3 tablespoons desiccated coconut
• 2 tablespoons ground almonds
• 1 small bunch fresh coriander
• 2 teaspoons cumin seeds
• 1 teaspoon coriander seeds

Rogan Josh paste

• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 thumb-sized piece fresh root ginger
• 75 g jarred roasted peppers
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 2 teaspoons garam masala
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• ½ teaspoon sea salt
• 2 tablespoons groundnut oil
• 2 tablespoons tomato puree
• 1 fresh red chilli
• 1 small bunch fresh coriander
• 2 teaspoons cumin seeds
• 2 teaspoons coriander seeds
• 1 teaspoon black peppercorns

To make either of these curry pastes, first peel the garlic and the ginger. Heat a frying pan on a medium heat and add the spices that require toasting to the pan (these are generally the wholes spices e.g. coriander seeds). Toast them until golden brown and smelling delicious, remove the pan from the heat. 

Place the toasted spices in a mortar and pestle and grind until fine or just put them in a food processor and grind until fine. When ground whiz them in a food processor with the rest of the ingredients until you have a smooth paste. 

Have fun with your curries, remember just try different things and you never know what you'll come up with! 

Catch ya later :)