Tikka Masala From Scratch

Over the last few weeks I have gone on another revamp of our lifestyle as I have been watching the scales climb. I signed up for a popular weight loss program and I had to have a giggle. I'll admit many people have seen results, they're cooking at home instead of eating out most of the week, being encouraged in a community and starting to work out regularly BUT my perspective of being healthy is by reducing, if not eliminating all preservatives. I know the behaviour changes I see in the kids, particularly the twins if they eat certain things. Anyway I am a huge lover of Indian food, it's one of my top rated cuisines out there and I stumbled across Chicken Tikka Masala on the recipe section BRILLIANT until I read that the paste was derived from a jar :(

Making your own paste from scratch really isn't that hard and it also isn't as time consuming as you'd think. While your curry pastes aren't the evil of all evils when it comes to preservatives it is really satisfying to make your own and when you have dietary restrictions like we do you can tweak the ingredients a little.

Let me just say I'm not totally anti quick fixes, if jarred food is your thing then that's ok but for us it isn't, without knowing exactly what is in food and generally if it comes from somewhere it has been processed you can bet your soul that the twins will form into evil gremlins that you've watered and fed after midnight. For us from scratch is the way to go. At first it was a daunting though but trust me it isn't as bad as you think!

Here is the Tikka Masala paste I made for tonights Chicken Tikka Masala (find the complete recipe here) 

Ingredients:

1 red onion, diced
10 cloves of garlic, crush them with the flat side of a knife and roughly chop
1 knob of ginger (roughly an inch), peeled and diced
3 tomatoes, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons tomato paste (see recipe)
2 tablespoons coriander seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 tablespoons dried fenugreek leaves
2 bay leaves
4 cardamom podsd
7 cloves 

Stick of cinnamon (roughly 1 inch) broken up into pieces

1 teaspoon coconut oil

1/4 cup cashews that have been soaked

Method

Heat the oil in a non-stick frying pan and add the cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and the bay leaves. Stir this for a few minutes until the cardamom has turned golden.

Add the coriander seeds and the cumin and fry for another few minutes.
Now add the onions, ginger and the garlic and continue frying until the onions are lightly golden.

Add the fenugreek, tomato paste and tomatoes and mix well, now add 1/4 cup of water. Cover the pan and cook for 10-15 minutes.

Let the mixture cool and put into a blender along with your cashews. Blend into a smooth paste.

This can keep in the fridge for a week or in the freezer if you'd like to use it later on.

Storage is best in an airtight jar.

This recipe makes enough for our family of 6 to use 2-3 times.