From Coriander to Curry

Everything you need

What on earth am I to do with a bumper crop of Coriander? Take a look at this lot! 

 I have had no trouble this winter in producing the best looking crop of the season so far and it has left me with a pleasant problem.  After offloading some of it to friends and family I decided to get cracking and make some curry paste and freeze it.  So I got out Jamie’s ‘Ministry of Food’ and used his recipes (see here for recipes) for batches of Korma, Vindaloo and Rogan Josh curry pastes. 


So I whipped out the Thermomix and two hours later there is 1.5 kg of curry paste and 300 grams of coriander stalks cooling in the freezer.

Fresh out of my garden to make the curries I picked bunches of lush coriander, and some red and green chillies.  I also pulled out of the freezer some of my own ginger, garlic that I had preserved in oil, and then grabbed out of the pantry some of my dried chillies that I had preserved earlier this year and coriander seeds that I grow heaps of every season. Other spices required we already had in the cupboard. 

Once you have the ingredients it’s not rocket science and only requires pushing buttons on the Thermomix.  The incredible aromas while toasting pepper, coriander seeds and cloves filled the house.   The coriander was so fresh you could hear the ‘crunch’ as the knife sliced through the stalks.

For those of us that are interested in what we eat, I have not added any preservatives to the paste.  So every time I want a curry, it will be fresh out of the freezer.  Or, I can use the frozen coriander stalks in a stir fry.  It woks rather well.

Want to know how to grow the best crops of coriander?