Top 20 Curry Products

Curry paste is the hardest-working jar in the Asian pantry, and this collection is our top twenty — the pastes and blocks our customers come back for, across Thai, Malaysian and Japanese styles.

Thai pastes lead the list. Mae Ploy's green and massaman are the restaurant standards; Nittaya's red, green and panang come in generous one-kilogram tubs for serious curry households; Maesri's little tins cover the specialist end — kaeng som sour curry and nam ya for noodles among them. Aroy-D's red paste without shrimp paste is the one for vegetarian tables. A spoonful of paste, a tin of coconut milk, protein and vegetables: dinner in twenty minutes, better than most takeaways.

Malaysian curry is represented by Tean's Gourmet chicken curry paste — the one-step route to a proper kari ayam — and Japan by S&B Golden Curry, the mild, sweet, block-style curry sauce that is Japanese comfort food incarnate: melt into water with potatoes, carrots and chicken, and serve over rice.

Curry paste keeps for months and most tubs refrigerate happily after opening, so buying two or three styles at once is the way to go. Everything is sent from our Manchester store, with free UK delivery on orders over £75.