Bottled happiness! When a curry paste can change how you eat

Cauliflower roast

An idea that was in the making for a year-and-a-half came to fruition during the lockdown - curries in a bottle. Mumbai-based Brijesh Jacob and Prajanya Advait are friends and business partners who co-founded Curry Tree, and have been selling ready-to-cook curry pastes online since July. They started off with popular Indian curries from the south they are familiar with: Goa's cafreal, Kerala's roast and Tamil Nadu's Chettinad.

Each bottle can serve up to eight people and costs a reasonable R249, except the cafreal which comes at Rs 289. You can add meat, vegetables, paneer or eggs to the curry pastes to cook a mouthwatering dish. One bottle lasts for six months before you open it and one week after you open it. "Indian curries and sauces don't get the applause they deserve. Much like others, we grew up relishing flavourful curries cooked by our mothers and grandmothers," says Jacob, adding that he wasn't satisfied with the authenticity of the flavours provided by the restaurants he would order from.

Cauliflower roast

A new lifestyle that involves working from home and working for one's home has left young professionals, like this writer, without time on our hands during the pandemic. Curry Tree seems the convenient way. "A customer, originally from Goa and working in Haryana, called for our cafreal paste because he was feeling homesick. He wrote to us raving about how it tasted like the one back home," gushes Jacob.

Going forward, Curry Tree plans to include curries from across India. "If we take the example of Maharashtra, there are so many flavours and cooking styles in just one state - whether Konkani, Kolhapuri or Malwani. We want our curry pastes to reflect the diversity and richness of India's cooking traditions," says Jacob, sharing that the team is working on flavours from West Bengal, Bihar and Rajasthan next.

Prajanya Advait and Brijesh Jacob

To buy https://www.growcurrytree.com/

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