I'd only ever used curry sauces before I met my fiancé, and he introduced me to the world of curry paste. When we first started going out, he offered to cook me a curry in an attempt to impress with his cooking skills. I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome, and loved the fact that the curry wasn't swimming in sauce like some of them are, and the sauce was nice and thick.

My other half usually takes care of the curry making in our house, that's the one dish he has perfected and it always turns out better when he makes it. I've had a go myself though and it is really easy to make curry using this paste. The technique we usually use is to brown the chicken, add onion, add a tin of chopped tomatoes, and then a couple of tablespoons of madras curry paste. We then cover the pan with tin foil and let it simmer until the sauce is bubbling and is nice and thick.

I also use this paste with minced beef for a curried mince dish I make, as I find it's a nice change to the usual curry or chilli dishes. It's a versatile paste, and good value for money. I think we usually pay around £1.80 for a jar in the supermarket, but we get four meals out of that so it's a good storecupboard item for when the stocks are running low!

The spice mix in this paste is quite hot, but you can vary how hot you have your curry by using more or less of it. We've been a bit heavyhanded a few times and have ended up sweating after eating a very hot curry, but generally if you get the quantity right it isn't too bad. The curry my fiance makes using this paste is so nice that we very rarely ever get Indian takeaway because I prefer his version.

I've recently got into Jamie Oliver's "30 minute meals" series, and he uses Pataks paste for one of his curries. I was quite surprised about this because chefs are usually big fans of making everything from scratch. Jamie points out that if you use Pataks paste you are still using authentic spices, but Pataks have done all the hard work for you. I have to say I agree with this 100%.