Let’s talk FOOD: An interview with Mister Paste

Last month I wrote a review on two Mister Paste’s curry pastes that I tried out and boy were they tasty. This month I’m launching my new series “Let’s Talk…” which is all about interviewing small businesses to help support them, raise awareness for their business, and learning more about them.

To kickstart my series, we’re discussing about food so what better way that to interview the founder of Mister Paste, Ian…

1. Tell us a little bit more about yourself

“Spend most of the my working life in computing but then owned a Singaporean restaurant in the city for 4 years and following that ran a frozen yoghurt booth, creating my own flavours, inside a deli.”

2. Why did you decide to start up Mister Paste?

“When strapped for time, i used to use bottled sauces but I got fed up with the gloopy sauces and not being able to really tailor the taste to my liking. Knowing that they already pasteurised (i.e. cooked) and full of preservatives to be able to sit in a warehouse or on a shelf for up to 1.5 years, I started thinking about a way to get raw and preservative free sauces to the time strapped cook at home to really give that “made at home” taste. I also got fed up not knowing just how spicy a sauce would be and thought it would be good to be able to control that at cooking time. I then happened upon vacuum sealing at home and saw this as my route to getting raw clean food to the market. I could then make the paste, vacuum seal it for freshness and then also package sachets of added ingredients like chilli so you can control the heat to your level.”

3. How authentic are your pastes in terms of taste?

“As with all recipes, they are particular to the recipe writer and close as
 possible to the authentic taste. If you search out a recipe on the internet you will find tens of “authentic” recipes for the same dish that are all different.”

4. Where do you get your inspiration from for your paste recipes?

“I looked at what are the most known dishes ordered in restaurants and used them for the basis of my initial range of curry pastes. As for the sauces, I’ve not seen them in any restaurants so they are ones I have found and Developed the recipe for my own taste and hope that many will also share my taste. I’m lucky that i have friends who are Thai and Indian who were willing to taste test and comment my recipes.”

5. What’s your favourite paste (from your range) and why?

“It’s hard to choose a favourite curry but if i would like eat beef, I’d choose rendang and for chicken I’d pick vindaloo. For the sauces, I’d choose the spicy,sweet and sour mango which is due to be launched soon.”

Bonus Question: Do you have any other plans for Mister Paste in the future?

“Future plans at the moment are a) to get more people to visit and buy from www.misterpaste.co.uk  and b) to add more recipes and also add some snacks like prawn crackers with a home made sweet chilli sauce.”

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A part of my new ‘Let’s Talk’ interview series

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