M01Kerala Garam Masala
The southern register — aromatic, not earthy
Photograph: Adobe Stock · representative of the dish
Plan ahead: plus 30 minutes cooling before freezing.
The re-engineeringTechnique 8 from the previous chapter, made once and portioned fourteen ways. Twenty grams of coconut oil across the whole batch — about 1.4 g a cube — replaces the 40–60 g a household would use building this base separately for four curries, and the body comes from twenty-five minutes of slow shallot reduction instead.
The weeknight engine of this book [LOW SODIUM] [VEGAN]
Almost every Kerala curry starts the same way: shallots cooked down, ginger and garlic, green chilli, powdered spice, tomato if the household uses it. That is twenty-five minutes of the forty a weeknight curry takes, and it is why people buy jars of sauce. Make it on a Sunday, freeze it in an ice-cube tray, and a fish curry becomes a fifteen-minute dish. There is no salt in it, so every downstream recipe still controls its own sodium.
Before you start: Slice all the shallots before you light the flame. Six hundred grams takes fifteen minutes to slice and the pan will not wait.
Base Shallot Masala to Freeze
Active 45 minutes Total 55 minutes
Scale
700 servings
Ingredients — tap to tick off
- ✓600 g (about 60) shallots, thinly sliced
- ✓200 g (about 2) tomatoes, chopped
- ✓40 g (an 8 cm piece) ginger, finely chopped
- ✓30 g (about 8 cloves) garlic, finely chopped
- ✓20 g (about 4) green chillies, slit
- ✓20 g (4 tsp) coconut oil
- ✓20 g (3 tbsp) ground coriander
- ✓12 g (2 tbsp) Kashmiri chilli powder
- ✓8 g (1½ tsp) ground turmeric
- ✓No salt.
Allergens: None of the major allergens.
Equipment: Wide heavy-bottomed 28 cm pan with a lid; silicone ice-cube tray with 50 ml wells, or a muffin tray. Substitute: freeze in a flat bag and score it into fourteen squares before it sets hard.
Method — tap a step to mark it done, tap a time to start a timer
- Heat the pan, add the coconut oil and swirl it to a film across the base. Add the shallots all at once with the lid on.
- Sweat on a low flame, covered, stirring every , until the shallots have collapsed, released their water and turned the colour of weak tea, . Do not rush this with a higher flame: you want them to melt, not to fry.
- Uncover and continue on a low flame, stirring more often, until the water has gone and the mass is jammy, glossy and one shade darker, .
- Add the ginger, garlic and green chilli. Cook until the raw garlic smell has lifted and the mixture smells sweet, .
- Add the coriander, chilli powder and turmeric. Cook, stirring constantly, until the powders darken by a shade and the raw dusty smell is gone, . Add a splash of water if anything catches.
- Add the tomatoes and cook until they break down completely and a thin rim of oil appears at the edge of the mass, . That rim is the cue: the water has gone and the base is done.
- Cool completely, , then spoon 50 g into each well and freeze. Turn out into a bag once solid and label with the date and the cube weight.
Why this worksSlowly reduced shallots do two things a quickly fried onion cannot. Their water leaves gradually, so the sugars concentrate and caramelise rather than the surface browning while the inside steams; and their cell walls break down completely, leaving a purée that thickens a gravy as a suspension. Frying the powders at step 5 hydrates them and drives their fat-soluble aromatics into the oil, which is why a curry on this base tastes cooked from the first minute.
Sourcing note
Shallots — cheriya ulli — are not interchangeable with onions here. They are sweeter, lower in water and higher in the sulphur compounds that build depth, and an onion base is noticeably flatter. Where shallots are expensive use 450 g shallots and 250 g red onion rather than going all-onion. Frozen pre-peeled shallots are a legitimate shortcut and save half the active time.
Swap it
No tomato → omit and add 15 g tamarind pulp at step 6. This is the older Kerala base and suits sadya-register dishes better; tomato in a "traditional" Kerala recipe is a reliable dating marker.
Groundnut or sesame oil for the coconut oil → saturated fat per cube drops from about 1.2 g to about 0.3 g, with a slight loss of Kerala character where the base is prominent. (Allergen: this swap introduces peanuts, sesame.)
Add 25 g of M04 or M05 at step 5 → a base pre-committed to chicken or fish. Convenient, less flexible, and label it.
Scale it
At 1.2 kg of shallots use two pans, or add 10 minutes to steps 2 and 3. Oil does not scale linearly; a wider pan needs proportionally less.
Make ahead · store · freeze
Fridge 5 days sealed, with a film of oil on the surface. Freeze 3 months as 50 g cubes — the intended storage. Use from frozen, dropped into a hot pan with a splash of water, where the cubes break down in 3–4 minutes.
Leftovers
This preparation exists to be a leftover. Freeze it in 60 g portions, and a portion straight from the freezer into a hot pan is the ten-minute start to a weeknight curry. A thawed portion should be cooked the same day. If a batch has been in the freezer beyond three months, use it in a dish with a strong masala rather than in a stew, where the shallots' sweetness is the flavour.
Troubleshooting
Sharp and oniony: step 2 was rushed on too high a flame. Nothing fixes it afterwards but longer cooking.
Burnt, bitter edge: the powders caught at step 5. Add a splash of water with them next time.
Cubes will not release: freeze 30 minutes longer, then dip the tray base in warm water for 10–15 seconds.
Tastes flat in the finished curry: it has no salt in it, by design. Season the dish, not the base.
Serve with
R010 Kadala Curry · R014 Egg Roast, Rebuilt · R040 Nadan Kozhi Curry · R055 Kadala Ularthiyathu · R080 Mixed Vegetable Stew — and, more broadly, fish and prawn curries, beef curries and roasts, pulse curries and dal.
Tap a star to rate this recipe
