Maggi Thai Style Green Curry Paste, 14.4 Ounce

Yech! I love all of the Maggi seasoning sauces but this green curry paste is nasty. It's like a bad attempt at green curry and there's nothing you can do to improve it except throw it out. I can't really identify the unpleasant nuance but I knew immediately something was off. Better to get those little Maesri cans from the Asian market instead since they're genuinely Thai.

Understanding that curries can be composed of various ingredients, I was willing to try something new; Maggi's Thai Style Green Curry Paste. When I opened the (nearly one pound) plastic tub, I found a thick, dark green mixture. Sniffing it, I couldn't detect any one specific aroma. I thoroughly mixed the contents and tried a small taste. The first sensation was overwhelming saltiness, followed by a mild heat. It was after that that I got a very small hint of ginger.If I'd known this, I wouldn't have planned our dinner around this paste. Too late, I diluted the saltiness and added layers of flavoring: coconut milk, julienned strips of fresh ginger, and (lacking oranges, I substituted) kumquats to the chicken and noodles. It was not a memorable meal. I won't be using the green curry paste again. If you prefer much less salt and rely on stronger flavorings (beyond jalapeno peppers), this is probably not something you will enjoy. Remember, your taste buds may react differently than mine, so it's not the product itself that is bad, it's just my own reaction to it.

Some of the reviewers here have suggested that this curry paste has a strong kick. Well, I looked at the ingredient list and saw that jalapeno peppers were the hot spice ingredient. I have to say that jalapenos ain't all that hot - not as hot as serranos and nowhere near as hot as Thai bird peppers or habaneros. So, to check it out I tried tasting a teaspoon of the paste straight out of the tub. The first thing that hits you is the salty taste (more on the salt later on) and then you get a mild jalapenoish flavor with very faint hints of cumin. You certainly don't get blown away by the spicy heat just eating it out of a spoon - still less when you actually put it into a curry. That is a shame as Thai curries are meant to have a kick - maybe not as strong as a Penang curry but still strong - unfortunately most of us have become accustomed to dumbed down tastes from Thai restaurants. I am sure that some "Spice canaries" (my term for people who keel over dead when detecting microscopic levels of spice - like the canaries they used to take down coal mines to test for carbon monoxide) will be gob-smacked by the heat in this paste. Personally, I found it necessary to double the recommended dosage and therein lies a problem because at double dosage there really is too much salt. Back to the salt content - another reviewer has stated that 60% of the "non water weight" is salt. He isn't exactly right. He correctly calculates that around 13% of the actual weight is salt. Now 5 ingredients are listed after the salt and before a statement about the remaining ingredients having being less than 2% of the weight. So each of these 5 ingredients contributes at least 2% to the weight or 10% combined. Also 2 ingredients other than water are listed before salt and must therefore each represent at least 13% of the weight. So, at least 49% (13%+10%+13%+13%) of the weight is not water - making salt around 25% of the "non water weight" and not 60%. Even if you count vegetable oil as water (which the reviewer does even though there is NO WATER in oil), you would still only have salt being 36% of the "non water or vegetable oil weight. It's still a lot of salt and you certainly won't need to add any more - I just like reported calculations to be accurate.

Before you continue reading my review of the Maggi Thai Style Green Curry Paste, understand that I am an avid cook but not a professional chef. This was also my first time using a curry paste, but I've used many other "paste" products over the years for cooking various meals.The Maggi Thai Style Green Curry Paste is a mixture of different seasonings used to simplify the seasoning of a variety of curry dishes while cooking. I used this to make both a traditional Thai vegetable green curry with coconut milk (using a recipe I found on the Maggi YouTube channel) and a Thai green curry chicken recipe that I found on AllRecipes.I expected the green curry paste to be spicy, but I felt like the most prominent flavors in this seasoning are the jalapenos and salt. The Thai green curry chicken recipe from AllRecipes included both soy sauce and fish sauce and I regret not using "low sodium soy sauce" and "low sodium fish sauce" when making that dish. The combination of this heavily salted green curry paste with both regular soy sauce and fish sauce made the dish MUCH too salty for my personal taste (and too salty for my wife).The Thai vegetable green curry with coconut milk wasn't nearly as salty, so I believe this curry paste is fine as long as you're cautious about the salt content of your other ingredients and/or the quantity of the salt-free ingredients is large enough to offset the salt in the green curry paste.In terms of actual use in the kitchen, the consistency of this green curry paste might surprise you if you're familiar with the use of chicken bouillon paste while cooking. The Maggi Thai Style Green Curry paste isn't as thick and "gummy" as most bouillon pastes I've used. That isn't a bad thing because it actually makes it easier to spoon out a specific portion of the green curry paste while mixing your ingredients. I only mention it because I often use bouillon paste when cooking and I was expecting a thicker paste. I also noticed a few other reviewers made similar comments about the consistency of this paste.Bottom line, the Maggi Thai Style Green Curry Paste is a decent product for preparing Thai dishes or other dishes that involve green curry. I would recommend this product as long as you like (or don't mind) jalapenos and you're aware of the high salt content.

Tastes great!

Half of the containers were busted open with the curry paste oozing all over the entire box.