If you make your own curry paste...

[Whazzzat]

What do you use to blend it? I made one at the weekend and it just said to use a food processor but:

• the one I usually use is large so doesn't work for small quantities, especially without liquid to keep it all at the bottom, it just throws the ingredients up the sides before blending them
• I bought a small one for the reason above when weaning DC. It didn't work either as it kept the cardamom seeds intact and just generally cut things very chunkily.

What am I missing?

Also, can you freeze curry paste? I think I'll be making large batches at a time for ease. I love making curries but the shop bought pastes tend to be too spicy for the little ones.

Sounds like your blender isn't powerful enough. I have a salter nutri pro which was great for making baby food.
I think some blenders you do need to blend a minimum amount to get the blades to break up everything, so by increasing the quantity you would have a bigger current moving all the ingredients around and hitting the blades.

Another option is to blend up the seeds first, separately. You'd have to do quite a lot for the blades to do their job but could keep the unused mix in an airtight container.

And yes, you could freeze the curry paste as long as none of the ingredients have been frozen before.

In the Jamie Oliver book he freezes balls of curry paste in a lined egg box, so they are the right portions.

I just use pestle and mortar to grind spices.

A nutribullet is great for making curry pastes.

I use a wet'n'dry grinder :-

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000A3FWD2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Quite pricey, but it's the best I've ever had. Particularly good for pastes as it copes with liquids.
I've had it over 7 years.

Second the nutribullet.

I used to have a small KitchenAid which just got used for making Thai green curry paste but it leaked all the time and never really blitzed the coriander.

Nutribullet doesn't leak and will grind cardamom etc. I don't know if the taste lingers because we don't use it for anything else!

I'm indian and I use my pestle and mortar or nuts/seed attachment on my nutribullet for seedy stuff or thai food pastes
Food processor to chop onions, coriander and peppers etc for me

Mostly for indian curries I cook it all in the pot and then use a soup blender to blend it directly in the pot though - I start off with toasting spices, then frying batch of onions, garlic, ginger, chilli and okra etc then take half out, add meat n veg, chopped or tinned toms, cook, blend, add back in the veg

I freeze big batches of garlic, ginger, chilli in ice cube trays, so easy to throw in to start a curry

I use a whizz stick thingy. And then I freeze in leftover breast milk storage bags (never had milk in them!)

I use a Delonghi coffee grinder, which I see has risen from £20 to £50+ very quickly!

How about this? I haven't tried it but why not?

Andrew James Electric Coffee Grinder, Seed, Bean, Nuts, Fine Spice Grinders, Black or Red, 70g, 150W (Black) amzn.eu/d/68KCcpO

If you are grinding spices, you need a grinder (I have an attachment on my food processor for one). That said, I personally if you are grinding cardamom, I hope it's the seeds, not the whole pod (otherwise, that will be your issue). If you don't need to grind whole spices, I just use a blender for the actual wet paste and use ground spices which I then cook off.