The Process

As soon as we arrive in the kitchen, we’re greeted by the delivery of fresh ingredients from the markets including fresh Australian brown onions, tomatoes, coriander, ginger, garlic and chillies to name a few.

We begin by blending, crushing and mincing the essential fresh ingredients and roasting loads of dried coriander, fennel and cumin until the whole kitchen is fragrant.

The toasted spices are cooled and ground in Latasha’s trusty spice mill and then placed in large buckets.

As she does this, one of the team starts to weigh the specific pure ground spice powders required for the formulation and the yoghurt powder is prepared with lemon juice. Latasha then grinds the special mix of whole spices and makes the specific garam masala for this curry paste.

Once all the ingredients are prepared, we put a large pan on the stove and add canola oil, butter and generous buckets of crushed onions. Crushed ginger, garlic and green chillies are added afterwards and a delightful aroma fills the room immediately.

Bucket loads of fresh pureed tomatoes, coriander and yoghurt are mixed together and then added to the pan along with Latasha’s garam masala.

We cook the mixture slowly and on a low heat until the paste thickens and turns magical.

Heat: mild but slightly spicy

Making it milder: This can be made even milder by adding more fresh crushed onions, shallots or spring onions at the start of the dish. Tomatoes, herbs, frozen spinach or other vegetables like potatoes along with coconut cream, coconut milk and coconut powder work well.

Making it hotter: It can be made much hotter by adding fresh ground green chillies or a few whole dry chillies.