OK, I finally cracked at the idea that this may be a breakthrough for me and did my best at aligning the ingredients to what I thought they should be.
The coconut block was discussed in the other thread as 200g, same size as the ones I get here.
I used coconut powder (dessicated) and made my own lemon dressing out of water, lemon juice, citric acid. Somewhere in the past I have come across a product similar to this here in the states, but I can't recall what it was. Any any rate, I'm curious to try it in a curry vs straight lemon juice now.
The resultant paste has a VERY nice flavor, and some of what I've called "secret flavor" that I could never put my finger on and other pastes did not seem to have but that I've recognized in restaurant versions of CTM. Due to regional differences, all but one of the CTM's I've come across here in the states are more orang-y so I leaned a bit that way on the coloring to get it to match what is commonly expected. The more prominent coconut flavor is definitely an improvement on most of the recipes I've previously encountered.
One final comment, it is VERY thick. My powerful blender didn't like it much, but it looks very much like the stuff in the picture, so I think I'm still good.
I'm excited to try cooking with it and see what the final dish tastes like. Either way, I think it is most certainly an improvement over past attempts and the cook process takes some guesswork out of preparing the final curry, as the paste is properly caramelized and thickened going into every pan (vs doing it on the fly).
Topic: JB'S takeaway massala paste (Read 25065 times)
