Easy curry paste recipes | Jamie Oliver recipes (2024)

FAQs

How do you use Jamie Oliver 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).

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.

It's important to taste your curry before serving, to check the seasoning and intensity. If at that final taste you find your flavors are too intense, too spicy, and even tasting a bit metalic, add in some fresh coconut milk. It will mellow out all the flavors and add a lovely fresh coconut aroma.

The amount of curry paste you use for one batch of curry depends on the strength of your paste and your personal spice tolerance, so taste the paste before you start! If it's really strong, start with about 2 tablespoons of paste for a batch of curry for four.

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.

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 universal way to use Thai curry paste is to make a curry. With homemade or store-bought Thai curry paste (my family swears by Maesri brand), the first step to use the paste in a curry is to heat about one to two tablespoons of oil with about two tablespoons of curry paste.

But for a more pungent, spicy paste, double up on spicy chilies and skip the bell pepper. Spices come in the form of turmeric, coriander, cumin, sea salt, and black peppercorn. And for a little acidity, I used both lime and lemon juice as well as lime zest.

What can you mix with curry paste? ›

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.

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 some more meat/veggies to the curry and it will balance out the taste. You can always use the leftovers for next meal. If you added too much of curry paste it will increase the spiciness and pungent smell of the gravy.

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.

Because the spices are added raw, the paste needs to be fried in hot oil when it is used. The moisture stops the spices from burning until all the water has evaporated out and the oil separates. Once this happens, the liquid base and the main ingredients can be added, just like cooking a curry from scratch.

You can, but most curry recipes instruct you to sauté the paste to bloom the herbs and spices in fat as the first step, and if you use a watery paste, you'll be boiling it for a while before it actually starts to fry.