A truly historic event. I have made my first ever curry from scratch. Bought my spices, made my paste, made it all. The inspiration came from the curry I had the opportunity to taste last week, at my now former work ( I am Lion Free, yessss!!). Kamal, a chef from Sri Lanka has made a curry that made me speechless. I was standing there, licking the spoon and thinking I’ve never eaten curry that good. It took some persuasion to get the recipe out of Kamal, as he claimed there is no recipe, there is throwing stuff together and it’s done. I’m sure in Sri Lanka that’s how it’s done.

I did follow Kamal’s recipe, as it was my first time. The amount of onion and garlic for the paste ( 2 onions, the whole bulb of garlic and a small ginger root) seemed like an insane amount, but I went along with it. He also said- 5 curry leaves, but that was the only thing I wasn’t able to obtain either in Whole Foods or in Sainsbury’s. For the next time I will. So, the paste that I blitzed went onto the oil to fry alongside a selection of spices, the amount was roughly 50 of each – curry powder, cumin powder, ground coriander, ground cinnamon, all fresh and fragrant from The Whole Foods. When all that fried a little making the kitchen smell like a curry house, I added some chopped tomatoes, 3 cloves, a pinch of cardamom, coconut cream and a tbsp of Greek yoghurt. That cooked slowly, while I was tasting and adjusting the taste with salt, pepper and sugar.  When I was relatively pleased with it ( but it wasn’t mind blowing like Kamal’s), I added the prawns and finished the whole thing with fresh coriander.

Kamal’s rice was outstanding too. It was flavoured with curry leaves again, cumin and, which I found surprising and lovely and will be copying from now on- thinly chopped fried shallot.

I don’t think I will ever buy a ready made paste again, but I will definitely be experimenting with curry. Very rewarding. 🙂