What I do when I want to attempt a curry at home (which is very rarely) is buy a curry paste in a packet. I have a couple of tried-and-tested go-to brands which help me whip up a curry in a matter of minutes. All I have to do is add some water, whatever meat or vegetables I want, and maybe some coconut milk at the end.
A staple in my pantry is Tean’s Gourmet past for vegetable curry. It’s Malaysian style, so it’s probably a fusion of Indian, Malay and Chinese spices and sauces, resulting in a fragrant, mellifluous curry that’s great with rice or noodles. I add vegetables like snake beans and eggplant, as well as tofu puffs, and it tastes great.
When friends decided to have an Indian-themed cookout recently, I decided to try my hand at Indian crab curry. Having had it in Indian restaurants and once, at a friend’s house, I knew it would be a complicated affair. So I headed to a neighborhood market where I had heard of a lady who supplies freshly made curry pastes for any kind of curry you want to cook.
After googling it, I decided to make a visit to Liza’s curry paste stall in the market. Tucked in between vegetable stalls and opposite a fresh coconut milk stand was a sweet lady behind mounds of what looked like freshly ground onions, garlic, chillies and other unidentifiable (to me at least!) spices. When I told her I wanted to attempt a crab curry, Indian style, she asked how many crabs I was intending to cook and started to scoop up various ground spices and herbs. She did it totally freehand, without measuring!
Useful tip - fry the crabs first. |
Slowly panfry the curry paste. |
After cleaning up and heading off to my lunch party, I cam home to the smell of curry in my kitchen. And the rest of the apartment. It’s been a few days already and even though I cleaned down the surfaces and sprayed Febreze liberally, I can still smell curry. The spices which smell so good when fresh are pretty overpowering, which is why I may have to reconsider cooking Indian curry again. Until the urge to eat crab curry hits!
PS: If you don’t have a Liza waiting in the market for you with all her fresh curry pastes, you’ll just to google a recipe for crab curry. I did and read it till I was cross-eyed
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