Home Made Curry Paste

Our answer

Nigella uses store-bought curry pastes in some recipes for speed and convenience, but for Indian influenced curries she often makes the curry paste from scratch. For Thai recipes she tends to use a good quality ready-made paste as the ingredients can be harder to find, such as galangal. We would suggest using one of the authentic Thai brands and buying the paste in an Asian food store or on-line. There are also several noted chefs who have written on Thai food and who will have recipes for various curry pastes.

If you would like to cook a curry from scratch then we would suggest Nigella's Butternut And Sweet Potato Curry. The paste made in step 1 can be done in advance and refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 3 months. If freezing the paste, thaw it overnight in the fridge before using.