Sunday, March 07, 2010

mascot

Awhile back, when I made curry, my blog friend Martin, told me about Mascot's Indian style curry paste.

I am always interested in finding products that make life in the kitchen a little easier without having to give up flavor while not having to eat a lot of preservatives or additives.

This curry paste doesn't use lard or shortening like the boxed roux I've seen (and used) in the markets. And it also doesn't use pork or beef in it, making it vegetarian.

Since they do not use meats to flavor their paste, they do instead use shiitake mushroom and kombu (seaweed) to up the flavor.

The label says that one bottle makes 3 servings of curry, but we had 6 "Kat sized servings" (about 1/2 a cup each) from this.

The directions on the bottle say to dump the paste into your pot and with the empty bottle, measure the water (total 2 bottle fulls--roughly 1 cup each).

Instead, I browned some onions, carrots, red bell pepper with some ground chicken in some olive oil. Then I added 2 cups of water, some garbanzos, potato and some spinach.

I let everything come to a boil then simmered it for 20 minutes (to cook the potatoes), then added the paste.

The result, a very flavorful spicy curry in about 30 minutes (give or take).

At 680 yen (about US$6.80), this curry paste is higher than those boxed roux, but for healthy choices, I'd say this is worth it.

Thanks for the heads-up Martin, this was delicious!

7 comments:

jalna said...

Wow, looks yummy!

Rowena said...

Your adaptation of the directions sounds so much better. This looks and sounds like a winner!

K and S said...

Thanks Jalna :)

Thanks Rowena, this was good :) it was the "middle" range hot, I think next time I want to try the really hot version.

Take care you two.
Kat

Deb in Hawaii said...

Looks delicious and nice to find one with a healthier ingredient list! ;-)

K and S said...

Thanks Debinhawaii, it is nice to find one with healthier ingredients :)

Take care.
Kat

Martin J Frid said...

Isn't it great! I have stocked up on it and keep a couple under my sink for emergencies, such as the Craving-Curry-Syndrome. There is no better cure.

K and S said...

Thanks again Martin, I will definitely be buying this again :)

Take care.
Kat