Burmese Curry Paste

This Burmese curry paste recipe is the spicy base for all chicken, fish or vegetable curries, according to my Burmese friend, Ma Toe, an excellent cook. It makes enough for three pots of curry so you make it once and freeze the balance. A brilliantly efficient way of cooking.

Burmese curry does not use spices, just a paste made of onions, garlic and ginger, cooked until fragrant and then reddened with cayenne and paprika or annato. For chicken curry, you add cinnamon sticks when cooking. For fish curry, you add tomatoes and lightly crushed lemon grass stalks.

Burmese Curry Paste

I love using this curry paste for a hybrid Indian/Burmese potato curry as well. The sauce is the best!

Ingredients
4 large onions
2-3 normal heads of garlic or 4-5 small ones
About 5-6 inches of fresh ginger
1/2 cup or 120ml canola or other light cooking oil plus a little for the pot
1-2 teaspoons cayenne
2-3 teaspoons of paprika or ground annato

Method
Peel your garlic or buy fresh already peeled. Do not use garlic paste or chopped garlic in a jar. They have other ingredients to keep the garlic from discoloring which add a weird flavor. I spread newspaper on my coffee table and watch TV while I peel. Goes quick.

Peel your ginger and chop it finely.

Peel your onions and chop them into quarters or eighths.

Put the whole lot into a blender with the canola and 1 cup or 240ml of water. Here Ma Toe would use just oil so don't tell her about my substitution with water. Her paste is richer and her curry gets a dark red slick of oil on top when it is cooked. Divine but not as healthy. Shh. (Feel free to use all oil if calories are not an issue for you. Seriously, much richer!)

It may not all fit at once so put what you can and blend for minute or two then add in the rest. Blend until you have a smooth paste, turning the blender off and pushing the bits down occasionally.

Heat up a little more canola oil in your pot and then pour in the paste.

Cook and cook and cook, stirring occasionally. It turns green as you cook it which is pretty cool, since you put nothing green in there. I don’t know why that always fascinates me. Like magic.

Once I asked Ma Toe how to know it was ready and she said, “When it doesn’t smell like onions anymore.” I’d say about 20-30 minutes will do it.

Now add the cayenne and paprika (or annato.) Cook a little longer and stir thoroughly until the color changes.

Now we are looking more like curry! If you like spicy, you can add even more cayenne.

This is going to be enough paste for three pots of curry so let it cool a little. Save it divided in three bags and pop it in your freezer.

Check out my Burmese Chicken Curry recipe here!

And last Friday, I posted my Burmese Fish Curry recipe too. So good!

Pin this Burmese Curry Paste! 

Spicy Potato Curry

My own fusion Burmese and Indian potato curry with tomatoes and lovely spices. It's my younger daughter's favorite! I hope it will be yours as well.

While I grew up eating curry, having lived in Trinidad as a child, Trinidadian curries tend to use a single curry powder, premixed from a variety of ground spices, so I was unfamiliar with the myriad of spices used in Indian curries.  

In the early days of catalog shopping, I came across a boxed set of Indian spices from Penzeys that came along with a delightful little paperback book called Spice Kitchen by Madhur Jaffrey that not only explained what each spice was (with illustrations!) but included great recipes for all of the author’s childhood favorites. You know I had to order it.  

This was before the days of internet so I faxed my order north and one of my husband’s accommodating rig hands brought it to me in Brazil, where we were living at the time and where Indian spices were never found in the stores. That little book is one of the most used, stained up, well-loved books in my cookbook collection. And I have saved the beautiful spice containers though their spices have long been used up.

One of my personal favorites from that book is Bazaar Potatoes. They are spicy and peppery and delicious and also beautiful to look at with their sprinkling of brown mustard seeds, kalonji, cumin, fennel and fenugreek cooked with bright red ripe tomatoes.  My only regret is that there is hardly any sauce. When it comes to curry, in fact for most dishes, the sauce or gravy is my favorite part. 

So I like to mash up (in the musical sense) two recipes to come out with a potato curry that still has all the color and spice of the original Bazaar Potatoes but also has a wonderful aromatic curry sauce that is perfect for pouring over rice or dipping your naan or chapati in.

Spicy Potato Curry

I usually have Burmese curry paste on hand because my original recipe makes enough for three pots of curry and it keeps beautifully in the freezer.  (Head over there and have a look.  It's not hard with a blender.)  I spoon about two good serving spoons worth and put it aside.  Then I follow Ms. Jaffery’s instructions until it is time to add the potatoes to the spices. And I add in the Burmese curry paste, and then the potatoes and a goodly amount water. The result is a lovely saucy potato curry.  Follow along with me.  

Ingredients

Approximately 4 oz or 100g Burmese curry paste from this recipe here.

6 medium, waxy potatoes (about 1.3 lbs or 600g)

3 tablespoons olive oil

8 fenugreek seeds

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

1/4 teaspoon kalonji

1/2 teaspoon brown mustard seeds

1 bay leaf

3 medium-sized tomatoes

1 teaspoon sea salt, or to taste

 (The original recipe also called for a small amount of fresh ginger and garlic but I omit these since I am adding both with the Burmese curry paste.  I also leave out the dried chilies since the paste has a generous helping of cayenne.)

Method

Give your potatoes a good scrub but don't peel them.  Then, in a large pot with ample water, put them on to boil.  

With a sharp knife, cut an X into the bottom of your three tomatoes and put them in a narrow heatproof bowl.

Meanwhile, when your potatoes are cooked, drain the boiling water into a heatproof bowl holding your three tomatoes.   Give them a few minutes to loosen the peels and drain the water off the tomatoes too. 

Allow them both to cool enough to hold and peel them.  I use a fork and a sharp knife when mine are still quite hot because I think tomatoes and potatoes are easier to peel when still hot.  Also, this is how my maternal grandmother always peeled potatoes for her famous potato salad with homemade mayonnaise and I like to think about her sitting at her usual place at the kitchen table while I do it.  I miss her.

Break the potatoes into pieces with your hands.  You can cut them but breaking them gives rougher edges to absorb the spices and I think it looks nicer too.   Set aside.

As for the tomatoes, cut them in half and remove their seeds.  Chop the halves further into large pieces.

In a pot that is going to be large enough for your potatoes with room for stirring, heat a little olive oil.   Throw in the rest of the seasoning and the bay leaf.  Let those sizzle for a couple of minutes, then add in the curry paste.  Give it all a good stir.

Now add in the tomatoes and stir. 

Add in the cooled potatoes and season to taste with sea salt.  At this point, I also add enough water to make a goodly amount of sauce, about 2 cups or 500ml. 

Cook over a slow fire for about 10-15 minutes or until the tomato chunks are starting to melt into the sauce.  You do not want them to disappear completely.  

Serve with rice or fresh naan or chapatis. 

Enjoy!

(If you have leftover potato curry, click here!  I used mine to make curry puffs.  So easy and delicious!)