Mamta's Kitchen - A Family Cookbook





Alternatives to Using Oil for Curry Pastes

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On 13/09/2009 10:09pm, RussiB wrote:

Hello,

I adore curries of all varieties and have recently started experimenting with making base curry pastes that I can keen in the fridge and use for quick and convenient curries. Yum!

I have come up with a very basic Indian Curry Paste that seems to be working well for me, however the recipe makes about 300g of paste for just over 750 calories, almost all of which comes from using 5 tablespoons of rapeseed oil.

Is there anything I can use as a substitute to oil in the paste? I have no issues with putting a tablespoon of oil over the top of the paste to help preserve in the fridge for longer, however is it essential for the actual paste?

On 14/09/2009 10:09am, AskCy wrote:

Hello RussiB, welcome to the site and in answer to your question no not really !

The oil in the paste has two uses, one being to help seal it all from the air and help to keep the ingredients fresh.

The second and more importantly is many spices are only soluble in oil/fat so it helps to get the flavours out of them. As you won't be using a great deal of the paste in each curry and each person eating it will only get a percentage of it, would it be worth trying to use anything else ?

Steve

On 14/09/2009 02:09pm, Winton wrote:

I'd worry that whatever oil you omitted from the curry paste you'd simply need to add to the pot later on to get the paste to dissolve into to stop it burning and bring out its flavours.

Perhaps you could look at different oils to use that better meet your health concerns, such as supposedly 'healthier' oils like rice bran oil?

On 14/09/2009 06:09pm, RussiB wrote:

Hi,

Thanks for your thoughts, taken on board. I use Rapeseed Oil for Indian cooking for the health benefits over Olive Oil as well as the higher smoking point. I think I'm just being fussy and appreciate you don't need a lot to get the desired effect.

Thanks for your help!

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