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CeylonCookingAuthentic • Sri Lankan • Recipes

Whole and Ground Spices

Curry Leaf Powder (Karapincha)

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Karapincha dried dark and milled, for the days there is no fresh sprig in the house.

  • Stripped from the stem before drying, leaf only
  • Milled fine enough to stir into rice or batter
  • Deep green, and it smells like karapincha out of the pouch
  • No salt, rice flour or anything else blended in
  • The practical option when fresh leaf is out of reach
$9

Available to pre-orderSKU: CC-CRL-PWD

Size: 50g

  • Carefully packed and shipped to your door
  • 14-day replacement on damaged items
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Description

Curry leaves dried and ground into a deep green powder. It will never replace a fresh sprig hitting hot oil, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What it does do is put real karapincha into rice, dhal, an omelette or a spice rub on a Tuesday when the nearest fresh leaf is a two hour round trip away.

Every Sri Lankan curry starts the same way: oil, mustard seed, onion, and a sprig of curry leaves that spits and curls and fills the kitchen. Fresh leaf is the whole point of that step, and nothing dried does it.

So this powder is for the other jobs. Stirred into cooked rice, dusted over a fried egg, worked into a dry rub, mixed into a sambol, blended into a chutney. In all of those the leaf is a flavour rather than a texture, and the powder holds up well.

We dry it slowly and mill it fine, and it smells right the moment the pouch opens, which is the only test that matters with karapincha.

How to Use

  • Stir a teaspoon through hot rice with a knob of coconut oil
  • Work into a dry rub for fish or chicken
  • Whisk into omelette or vadai batter
  • Finish a dhal that had no fresh sprig to start with

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Frequently Asked

No, and anybody who tells you otherwise has not tried it. Tempering works because a whole fresh leaf hits hot oil, spits, curls and releases its oil in seconds. Powder just burns. Use the powder in the dish, not in the pan at the start.

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