Easy curry paste recipes | Jamie Oliver recipes (2024)

FAQs

How to use Jamie Oliver's curry paste? ›

Preparation and Usage

For a meat or veg curry, heat a splash of oil, then add the paste and diced meat or roughly chopped root veg, and fry for about 5 minutes, before adding tomatoes, passata or coconut milk with a splash of stock to make your sauce. Stir in pulses.

To make the curry paste, peel, roughly chop and place the garlic, shallots and ginger into a food processor. Trim the lemongrass, remove the tough outer leaves, then finely chop and add to the processor. Trim and add the chillies along with the cumin and half the coriander (stalks and all).

Add in more dried spices.

While the store bought pastes may contain them, in my experience their aromas don't come through. So I've gotten in the habit of toasting a small amount of my own whole spices, pounding them into a powder in my mortar and pestle, then mixing that powder into my paste.

The whole jar is ample for a family of four but if you're cooking for two, the reminder can be stored in the fridge for 5 days or frozen.

Curries and Stews

Probably the most common use for Thai curry paste is in curries and stews. Cook the curry paste in a little oil first to bring out its flavors, then coat proteins — like chicken, pork, or tofu — and vegetables with the warmed paste before slow cooking until everything is flavorful and tender.

The paste is mixed with coconut milk or water plus vegetables, meat or seafood, then served up on a bed of jasmine or sticky rice. You can also use Thai curry paste in warming soups and sizzling stir fries.

Add 2 parts coconut milk or broth to 1 part curry paste for a pasta sauce. Keep adding milk or broth until it's thin enough to toss with noodles. Pour it over hot noodles and mix it together to create a tasty pasta dish. Adjust the spiciness as needed by adding more or less paste.

If you added too much of curry paste it will increase the spiciness and pungent smell of the gravy.

Add coconut milk, and simmer the curry until it reaches your preferred consistency. A good rule of thumb for using coconut milk is to use roughly one cup of coconut milk per tablespoon of paste; taste and adjust the amounts from there.

Traditionally, all Thai curries were made with the same ingredients except for one thing: the chillies. Red curry was made with several red chillies for a fiery hot dish, while green curry was made with green chillies, and yellow curry was made with yellow chillies.

Is it worth making your own Thai curry paste? ›

If you're ready to take your Thai cooking to the next level, making your own Thai curry pastes is the way to go. Red curry paste is the most versatile paste in Thai cuisine, and I use it in many recipes. So if you were to only make one paste from scratch, this is the one!

The most common use for curry paste is, unsurprisingly, in curries. To make one, you typically add the curry paste to a skillet, followed by the protein or veggies, then a liquid such as stock or coconut milk.

Add more spices: Store-bought curry sauces often lack the depth of flavour that homemade sauces have. To remedy this, you can add more spices like cumin, turmeric, coriander, and garam masala. Use fresh ginger and garlic: Fresh ginger and garlic add a lot of flavour to curries.

The easiest way to fix a bland and tasteless curry is by adding spices like red chili powder, cumin, coriander, garam masala, curry leaves and turmeric. Just make a quick tempering and pour over the curry to give it a nice punch of spices and herbs.

Curry powder is cooked with other fresh ingredients before adding the main protein or vegetables. Meanwhile, curry paste is cooked or blended with fresh ingredients and can be added to the pan with your main elements. Some like diluting the paste with a liquid to make it a sauce consistency.

It is important that the product is not consumed uncooked; this is because Patak's^® pastes are made with some unprocessed spices. Do Patak's^® products contain Garlic? Garlic is an essential ingredient in our range of sauces and pastes. But please refer to label for full list of ingredients.

Curry paste is a wet ingredient made with fresh chilies. It must be dissolved into a liquid during the cooking process. Curry powder is a dry ingredient that must be activated with a liquid or oil. It does not include fresh chilies, so it will be much less spicy than a curry paste.