All Purpose Curry Paste
A blend of toasted Indian spices ground and mixed with crushed garlic and ginger, blended together with a little oil.
Servings: 10 servings
: 734 kcal
Ingredients
- 2 tsp fennel seeds
- 4 dried red chillies cherry bomb ones are great here or use 2 of the larger Kashmiri dried chillies
- 4 bay leaves Indian if you can find them
- Seeds of 16 cardamom pods
- 4 tbsp coriander seeds
- 2 tbsp cumin seeds
- 2 tsp black peppercorns
- 2 tbsp ground ginger
- 2 thumb sized pieces of ginger peeled and roughly chopped
- 10 cloves of garlic
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 4 tbsp olive oil
Instructions
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Measure all the spices down to the ground ginger into a dry frying pan and toast on a medium heat until their fragrances are released. Transfer to a plate to cool.
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You can grind these by hand in a mortar and pestle or use a mini food processor, spice/coffee grinder or if you have a Bamix with a nut mill, that works very well too (I use a coffee bean grinder I only use for the purpose of grinding spices). If doing it in a machine, you will need to do it in a few batches as most are too small to get it all in in one go.
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Once ground, stir in the ginger then transfer to the smallest bowl of your food processor (again I use my Bamix but this time I use it with the multipurpose chopping blade in the tall container that comes with the machine) and add the garlic, fresh ginger and oil. Pulse and process until very well combined and quite smooth.
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Transfer to a small sterilised jar and refrigerate until needed.
Recipe Notes
If keeping more than a couple of days, pour a thin film of olive oil over the top to keep it fresh, topping up as necessary. It keeps for a couple of weeks like this.
You can measure out tablespoons worth and freeze either on a piece of greaseproof until it is solid then transfer to a freezer bag. Or use an ice cube tray you don't plan on using for drinks again to prevent transfer of flavours! Use within 3 months to preserve flavour.