Sexify your meals! (Patak's Original Madras Curry Paste)

Member Name: charby

Product:	Patak's Original Madras Curry Paste
Date:	13/10/08 (247 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Tastes great, cheap, bit spicy

Disadvantages: bit spicy if you don't like it.

For those of you who don't know (probably all of you to be honest), I absolutely adore curry. I don't care if it's spicy or sweet, fruity or meaty, as long as it tastes good and comes with some good rice and naan bread I'd do almost anything for it. Takeaways from an Indian restaurant not far from home used to be one of my favourite meals, but now since I live away from home and can't really afford many takeaways on my new student budget, my curry train has dried up somewhat. My mam, being the nice person that she is, bought me a book containing many recipes for making lots of different types of curry, and those that I have tried from there have all been very good, though it is often hard to find all the necessary ingredients in British supermarkets, or the cooking is time consuming and difficult, so I haven't been able to make as many as I would like. One day in Asda, however, I stumbled upon the Pataks section of the supermarket, and since I've tried their jars of curry sauce in the past and quite enjoyed them, I popped a couple of jars of curry paste in my trolley so that I could make my own curry easily at home.

I have to admit that I bought this jar almost by accident, as I thought that it was a smaller version of the curry sauce jars that I'm used to seeing and having, which only need to be heated and added to meat or vegetables to create a tasty and simple curry. These jars however, contain a paste of spices which need to be cooked with tinned tomatoes or passata, as well as onions/garlic whatever on top of the meat, which involves a lot more preparation and isn't as good if you're lazy or a bad cook, like a lot of us are.

Despite my initial disappointment, however, I am now delighted that it was this little jar of Madras curry paste that I ended up taking home with me. The first time that I used it, I ended up making a gorgeous prawn curry, simply by cooking a tin of chopped tomatoes, crushed garlic, fried prawns and a dollop of this paste in a pan on the hob. The whole process took only about 15, including frying the prawns, which was very quick and painless, and the end result was fantastic. The taste is definitely madras, though I think that anyone who enjoys any type of curry will still enjoy it. The taste is drier than a lot of other alternatives, though rich and filled with a variety of spices, and the smell of it raw in the jar or while it's cooking is absolutely fantastic.

The fantastic thing about this paste is that its uses doesn't stop at making curry, as it can be added to a variety of other foods to make them more exciting and to spice them up a bit. For my tea tonight, for example, I had a tin of beans with two dessert spoons of curry paste cooked along with them, which gave them a deliciously different flavour, that had a bizarrely meaty edge to it, although there is no meat in the paste or the beans themselves, and made my meal a lot more interesting than just plain baked beans. I have also used it with a tin of spaghetti in tomato sauce and in pasta sauces, all with great results.

This madras paste is fantastic for me as a student, as it made my 14p tin of spaghetti taste twice as good as it does by itself, and the jar of paste itself only cost me £1! I've had it for about a month now and have used it about four or five times, and I would say that it is still about half full (or half empty, depending on your outlook on life), so it's very cost effective at only about 10p per use. Why wouldn't you want to pay that much for something that makes almost any meal 10 times better?? It's also not too bad calorie wise at 520 calories per 100g, which is about 1200 for a whole 245g jar, but since you only use a small amount each time, it's not going to make you fat by yourself.

For those of you who don't like spicy food at all, unfortunately this may not be for you. I wouldn't say that it is overly spicy, but it does have a definite twinge of spiciness to it, so I would recommend having a small try of it before having a full meal with it, just in case it's too hot for you. Pataks does a variety of curry pastes, so if this is too hot, there will probably be another one that would be perfect for you. For those of you who like their curries or other meals to be as hot as hell, then you can always add more chilli powder or chopped chillies if this doesn't quite do it for you, but fortunately it's easy to add spiciness depending on your preference.

Anyway, as you can tell, I absolutely adore this curry paste, and will definitely buy this again in the future, although I'm also interested in trying the other pastes in the range to see if any are as good or even better. Don't be put off if you're not a huge fan of curry, since as I've said, there are many other meals that you can use it in instead. I'm thinking of making a lasagne using it along with the tomato sauce, but since I'm a lazy student, I'm unlikely to do anything like that any time soon!

Summary: A great curry paste that can be added to almost anything!