So this lovely girl here is Anjali and she's the granddaughter of the original Mr. Patak's. 60 years ago? 60 years. Tell us a little bit about how he started because obviously he was over here in the UK right? yes so he was cooking for his family, everyone was like what is that? and so he started to make stuff at home and people started to give him money, enough to own a shop and they started to give away spice mixes for free and then he thought actually maybe I should start doing this for a living. It started with spices but then went on to the pastes, absolutely yeah. So the idea of a spice paste, it's about locking in flavour, using fresh spices which don't last that long. So we're gonna make a spice paste now right? yes a mild curry paste right so we can go with so many different things, you can use as a marinade, you could use it as an actual curry, you could use it if you just want to toss some veggies through it, there's like a ton of stuff, so we need to toast off some spices to release all their flavour, So I'm gonna give you some chillies, I've got a couple of black cardamom pods, So you'll know a lot from like tandoori and stuff like that, so really nice and smoky and then this is my favorite spice-green
cardamoms. I'm gonna give you quite a few of those cloves, let's go in with a little bit of bay and then how do you feel about cinnamon? I love cinnamon. This little selection of spices are we going in here? Yes, let's toast those off, notice how I've not gone too crazy, because these are incredibly strong So while that's toasting off, I want to go in with some of these. So this is coriander seed? coriander seeds-three heaped teaspoons of that, double of that of cumin seeds, so you want six? yeah cumin is quite a pungent spice isn't it? Quite strong, go in with some black peppercorns, this is like a garam masala And Garam means warm, Masala means blend, it's a warm blend, we're warming up our spices, so we're extracting all these essential oils, nice and slow so then we can then use this Garam Masala on something but we're gonna be using this to make a Paste because we're gonna lock it in oils and it lasts for a lot longer Now these are done Jamie, I just want to show you-we're getting a bit of fragrance from it and its starting to change colour, which is great, now you don't want to grind it when it's crazy hot, so you want it basically to calm down, you want everything to set. We'll let that cool what I'd love you to show me, is that you've brought pictures with you and I love a picture. So this was our first Patak's Van. This is my uncle actually, outside one of our shops so we had jars, poppadoms we had Spice mixes as well, so while we invented the Paste, we also did the spice mixes side by side, because some people didn't quite understand what paste was, but yet they'd seen a spice mix on their travels, so they understood that. To some extent we're still trying to educate, people love curry but they're nervous. I think that's why they actually went into it in the first instance, right because they realise not everyone is gonna buy all these spices people don't really know what to do with them, so we should give them our blends, our family recipes and then at least they're gonna make a good curry every now and again. So now I think this is cooled down, you're gonna have a little feel yeah, that's ready now to be ground up, so the old way will be using a pestle and mortar, there are natural oils in those spices, we want to kind of bash that out, we could be here for hours doing this couldn't we? I think it looks like you're gonna be, should we do what we would do at home? Right let's whizz it up. Smells amazing! Right so, oh gosh, so this is the Garam masala now right? Yes. So what next then? so now we need to think about the fresh ingredients that we think we're gonna add to this, garlic four cloves, yeah. Pop all that in, thumb amount of ginger, how bigs your thumb this big. We'll go on and put yours next to mine This recipes already got a problem My thumb size of ginger I think is pretty good, shall I tell you how i test chilli? I'd love to, all right so just nip the end off for me, so i rub the end. Don't put it on like it's lipstick, literally just like that, mine's a little yeah, mine like that too, ye exactly. So do you want to put all of it in? No. Laughter Should we do one and a half? yeah alright So now I'm ready to think about going in with turmeric, turmeric is also gonna keep the life of your paste a lot longer, salt, oil, so what kind of oil will you use just to kind of like ground nut oil, rapeseed oil, nothing too flavoured and then tomato paste-two heaped tablespoons, ye pretty much, it's very exciting You got to think of this is like a base, like this is where you start, even with the paste that you buy, you start with those and then you end up figuring out what you love and then you start adding your own stuff to it, it's literally just a helping hand. What British things have
you hijacked with a little bit of paste? Fish and chips, really how? So when you've battered your fish, warm-up some paste, let it down with a little bit of water, warm it up very gently in a pan and get that basted on your fish, you baste fish and chips with? It is a game changer! honestly it's insane! Alright so what now? This is ready for tasting, we need to make sure that this is actually seasoned up, I'd say it's pretty good actually, So one last little wazzy, wazzy and then we put it in our jars right? ye. It smells amazing! I'm very happy about that. That paste is like a little history lesson, so thank you, that was a real pleasure I've learned such a lot. There you go lovely people a lot of love right there and if you don't want to have a go, then you've got the paste it's so convenient From me and Anjali and all of the guys
at Patak's, lots of love.