If your home cooking isn't bog-standard British, which shortcuts do you use?

[WinterDeWinter]

Following on from this brilliant thread, I thought it would be really interesting to hear about 'acceptable' cooking shortcuts from people who often cook authentic food from their culture of origin.

For eg one poster said that her generation will happily use ready-ground masala mixes rather than grinding from scratch as their mothers would have done, but they wouldn't use Patak's pastes for eg.

I've been using frozen crushed garlic and ginger recently for curries and Middle Eastern food - I'd love to know if I'd be considered a terrible slattern or whether it's considered a useful shortcut.

Also very interested in any batch cooking and pre-prepping tips - for eg the same very helpful poster said that some friends pre-prep the onion/spice base and freeze, then defrost to speed up weeknight cooking.

I'm interested in all cuisines but especially Asian, Chinese, Mexican and the various Middle Eastern ones, and anything vegan-ish.

@WinterDeWinter at the same time.

I have whole garam masala spices in a grinder (I keep refilling my bart's one but I am sure a standard pepper grinder would be even better) which is great as you get the fresh taste with minimal faff.

Chopped frozen onion and ginger/garlic/chilli pastes do speed up prep for no loss of flavour.

I do naan dough in the bread maker and then dry fry which works brilliantly.

Finally an electric pressure cooker is a great time saver particularly because you can cook pulses without pre-soaking - I can have chilli sin carne ready in about an hour with only 10 mins in the kitchen. I have Urvashi Pitre's Indian Instant pot cookbook and love her recipes for biryani. she has a vegan variant for her famous butter chicken with coconut and soya - I haven't tried it but love the veggie version. My pot is also great for effortless risotto and homemade yoghurt.

A couple of non-authentic freezer tips: I put heaped teaspoons of harissa paste on a bit of baking parchment in a plastic takeaway box and freeze, so I don’t end up with half a jar of rose harissa going expensively mouldy.
From when I was trying South Indian recipes:
If you do the faff of soaking, mushing and sieving a tamarind block, you get a jug of tamarind puree at the end which can be frozen in ice cube trays and kept in a bag in the freezer.
Curry leaves bought online seemed to survive best when fried in a tiny bit of oil first then frozen in a ziplock bag (not perfect but better than other methods I tried).

Garlic chives are marvellous things, perennial so come back year after year and so easy to grow. Have a pot in the garden and whenever you need onions and garlic but are too lazy to start peeling and chopping through tears, grab a handful, voila!

The one thing that has massively improved my curries (BIR style rather than 'authentic') and saves time in the kitchen is batch cooking this base gravy:

It's fairly mild but brings the lovely complex flavours I've struggled to achieve in many of my previous attempts and I've pretty much stopped buying take-aways now.

I also like the pre-made stir-fry sauce from The Woks of Life (fantastic website for Chinese recipes) for super quick weekday meals:
thewoksoflife.com/stir-fry-sauce-recipe/

@CheeseComa that link for curry base doesn't work...any chance of another that does, please? Thanks 🙏🏻

@Isthislove4ever Sorry, didn't check the link earlier, let me try again!

How To Make Indian Restaurant Style BASE GRAVY Small Pot (BIR)

@PurpleParrotfish I confess I just mush tamarind paste into the curry! I haven't done taste tests though, it might be much nicer dissolved and sieved? Oh interesting re curry leaves - related note, I've read (Spicebox book) that you should use fresh, but if not poss, dry bay leaves are a better substitute than dry curry leaves.

@UnaOfStormhold the spice grinder jar idea is brilliant! And I think I must invest in an instant pot..

@CheeseComa I had heard of BIR cooking but I didn't get very far! I must look further - and that Chinese site is fantastic, that brown sauce really is a great shortcut.