Patak's Foods is a major producer of packaged curry pastes with products distributed to 45 different countries. The founder, Mr. Patak, was initially from East Africa but his company got its start in the UK. The company offers a variety of curry pastes including Biryani, Butter Chicken, Madras, Tandoori, Tikka, Vindaloo, and generically labeled hot and mild curry paste. According to their website, they “make it easy for food lovers everywhere to prepare authentic Indian dishes.”
According to Patak’s website, this paste originated in the region of Kerala in southern India. What the website does not mention is that Madras curry is actually a British invention. During the British colonial occupation of India, the British classified five types of curry based on the regions they were from including Madras, the region in Southern India. The British would take a few distinctive features of the region’s cookery and then apply these characteristics to all curry from that region. The Madras curry invented by the British was a very simple spicy sauce for meat made up only of curry powder, onion, salt and pepper. These types of recipes, while unsophisticated, became the first pan-Indian cuisine.
The Madrass curry Paste from Patak’s promises to be an “authentic blend of aromatic spices for a beautifully blended aromatic dish.” The paste is made up of a mixture of spices including coriander, cumin, and red chilies. I used the recipe printed on the jar though Patak’s provides 30 possible recipes for the paste on their website. As per the instructions on the jar I used onion, tomato, ginger, garlic, and beef with the sauce. The instructions are easy to follow, though it is a rather time consuming dish taking about one hour to cook. The result it four servings of a flavorful and spicy sauce that works well over rice.