Pastes and uses

[loveitspicy]

Whats everyones take on pastes and the uses of them.

Do you think they have a place in bir or general Indian cooking. Convenience at home probably for sure.
What about taste, do they taste too acidity. Too false.

Who's made any.


best, Rich

[Micky Tikka]

In my opinion they are part of my kitchen
I use them for the red sauce for CTM and now and then for Tandooring
I think the Indians are great cheats and I'm always on the look out for a new Pickle Chutney or paste
to add to my concoction

[Peripatetic Phil]

Apart (obviously) from garlic paste, ginger paste, g/g paste and tomato paste, the only other paste I used on a regular basis is Kashmiri Masala.  I have some of the others (tikka, tandoori, ...) and I know at one point I was going to invest in a giant tub of kebab paste, so highly did it come recommended, but at the moment only the first five feature regularly in my BIR efforts.

** Phil.

[Stephen Lindsay]

don't use any off the shelf pastes and when I do use them they are home made

[Peripatetic Phil]

don't use any off the shelf pastes and when I do use them they are home made

Bunter would have been proud to have uttered those words, Stephen
** Phil.

[loveitspicy]

Stephen
since you make them - are they water or oil based or are they water and oil based - whats your recipes that you work to and are you adding any citric acid-

the reason i'm asking - i'm playing at making them at the moment to make life easier here - get staff to cook the curries all the same (headache)

best, Rich

[goncalo]

This is an interesting subject. I sort of prefer if a recipe doesn't call for a premade paste, as that seems to be cheating the BIR taste.

Recently, I've been willing to make the CTM again, but, unfortunately, I've not managed to find the mint paste or patak's tikka paste (only the tikka masala paste) which is used in the magic sauce for the marinade. Any idea if I can replace these 2 with home-made ones and if so, would you know of any recipe?

[Kashmiri Bob]

I was dead against them to start with, but am rapidly changing my mind.  Pataks tandoori curry paste in blades tikka and a tiny bit of kashmiri masala in the mighty kushi kebab. Made a methi gosht today, my best tasting curry to date; just over half a tsp of madras kebab paste in the recipe. Also had some good results with naga and others.  Easy to overdo it with pastes though. Very easy. 

Rob