Patak's Biryani Paste review

A while ago, I received a selection of Patak's curry pastes to sample and last night, we decided to try out the Biryani Paste. It's labelled as medium heat and the jar says it makes 8 servings.

First off, I chopped and gently fried in a little olive oil some chicken fillets. Once they had turned completely white and were nicely cooked through, I poured over half of the jar of sauce and continued to cook for a couple of minutes, stirring constantly to make sure the chicken pieces were evenly coated in Biryani sauce.

I now added a pint of water and threw in a few handfuls of uncooked basmati rice, gave it a good stir and left it to simmer, turning down the heat to low and putting a lid on the pot.

Now, the tricky part of cooking biryani is waiting for the rice to cook through but not leaving it so long that it sticks to the bottom of the pan and/or starts burning. To get around this problem, I turn off the heat completely while there's still some liquid left, making sure the lid is tight fitting so the steam stays inside and keeps the rice cooking.

The biryani paste has a really good flavour and the dish was really tasty but we all thought that it should have been labelled hot rather then medium. In fact, we needed to cool things down with a hefty splash of cream (as we didn't have any plain yoghurt in the fridge) mixed in at the end. The "problem" with biryani is that, unlike other curries, where the rice is cooked separately, the rice soaks up the spices and becomes just as spicy as the meat so it seems hotter than comparable pastes served with plain rice. We were actually surprised because we reviewed (here) the Oven Bake Biryani sauce, also made by Patak's and also labelled medium, and we found that one to be very tame.

100g of paste contains 225 calories and 18.6g of fat. It's free from artifical colours and flavours and is suitable for vegetarians.

I love the fact that it's a simple, one-pot meal and that the blend of spices taste really authentic. I do feel that the "medium" heat-rating was too low though - for us it was definitely a "hot" !

star rating : 4/5

RRP : £1.79 for 283g

for more information : http://www.pataks.co.uk/products/biryani-paste.aspx

Other reviews you may be interested in :

ENJOY AN INDIAN INFUSED SUMMER WITH PATAK'S DELICIOUS RANGE OF PASTES

Patak's Oven Bake Biryani

Patak's Bengal Pickle review