The end of the paste saga...for now
Searching for manufacturers and the return of spice blends
Hello everyone!
It’s been another gruelling week in my production kitchen but things are finally starting to crystallise.
For the past few weeks I have been yo-yoing between “I can make this paste myself” and “I need a factory now!” Every time I take a step back from it I think how hard can it be, then I attempt to make a batch and it’s a resounding hell no. Well, after my last disastrous batch, I decided to give my stone grinder another go and transported it to my commercial kitchen in Battersea to test it properly.
This time, my plan was iron clad - no added water, a little bit of added oil, prep all of the ingredients the day before and vacuum them (see above) so that on paste making day it would be seamless. I was going to make a 25 jar quantity and grind it in 2 batches. Well the best laid plans of mice and men and all that… in reality a 25 jar batch needs to be ground in about 8 small instalments, each time producing a huge amount of mess and excess paste stuck to the nooks and crannies of the VERY heavy stone grinder. Not to mention how difficult it is to heat up (without burning) a very thick paste to the desired temperature to kill bacteria and then stuff it into jars when it isn’t pourable. It is a process that is much more foolproof in theory than in practice. But in a way I’m happy about it. When I signed up to my kitchen again in May it was for a fixed 3 month period (so 1 month left) and my aim was to find out once and for all if this is a product I can make myself in any reasonable quantity or not. It turns out the answer is not and so this has been a successful experiment; especially as I just discovered this week that lots of retailers actually require you to have accreditations which can only be gained from external manufacturing. So, a huge weight has been lifted and I now begin the search for a company who can help me scale my recipe.
The positive is that the end result was lovely, despite it taking me 2 days to make 10 jars which aren’t even shelf-stable! I erred on the side of caution seasoning wise so more salt and souring agent is needed but the texture resulted in a very nice curry. Knowing I can achieve the end result, even in tiny quantities, will help me massively when approaching manufacturers and this is a process I started making headway on this week. I have samples en route from a potential Indian manufacturer who already specialise in Goan masalas and will begin hunting for a UK based one this week as this will likely be the interim option with lower MOQs before larger scale production in India.
So what does this mean for the curry paste? Sadly, it means no product samples for now. Due to the limitations I have with production, anything I want to send out would need to be chilled and for health and safety reasons this isn’t a goer right now. Also, as this product is going to end up being outsourced and the recipe likely tweaked from my little test batches, the samples would be rather moot. However, for those of you who had signed up to be product taste testers, I am still working on the recheado and this is a much easier product to send samples of due to it being naturally shelf-stable with a high vinegar content. So while I work in the background on finding a manufacturer for my curry paste, my focus is now back on recheado testing and also back onto my spice blends! For my third month in my kitchen I am going to be reformulating my xacuti spice blend and expect to have that ready by the end of the summer, just as it’s cooling down enough to eat curries again! In a recent mentorship session I was advised to keep selling spice blends while I work on the paste so that’s what I’m going to do. I’d also love to know, generally speaking, if people would be just as happy making a curry with a spice mix (and much more cooking involved) or if a paste to curry in 5 minutes is the preference.
That’s all for now folks, for more behind the scenes I post more regularly on instagram but will keep updating here every 2-3 weeks with noteworthy updates.
Emma x
Interesting to see just how much testing, effort, sweat and tears goes into the process of getting a product tested and to the level required. All the best, and looking forward to buying your blends or pastes when they reach the shelves.
Hi Emma I have been following along on your curry paste making journey on IG and now Substack and it’s been quite an education for me. Really appreciate you sharing your experience with it all. I look forward to reading how this continues to evolve in the future. Keep going and all the best.