RECIPE: How to clean and store fresh curry leaves

As you know, we love Indian food!  Many recipes call for curry leaves, preferably fresh, which aren't available locally.  I did see one blogger say she had a curry plant she keeps in her kitchen, which I will look into. but that may not be a viable option in New England.

Fortunately, I was able to buy FRESH ORGANIC curry leaves on Amazon, shipped to me from a small farm in Arizona.  I'm not sharing the link because the seller is out of stock now, but there are other sellers.  Just be sure you buy fresh, not dried.  Dried organic curry leaves are available from Pure Indian Foods but the fresh ones have more flavor.

Fresh curry leaves (keep the stems, they have lots of flavor)

How to Clean and Store Fresh Curry Leaves

THIS INSTAGRAM POST shows you how to clean them and freeze them.  

Following her instructions, I removed the leaves from the stems (keeping the stems as they have lots of flavor).  A few (very few) of the leaves I received were damaged - I threw those leaves out.

I rinsed the leaves in a bowl of water, drained them in a sieve, and dried them on multiple changes of paper towels until they were DRY.

Fresh Curry leaves, washed (on the left) and drying on paper towels (on the right)

 

I then stored them 4 different ways:

• plain in a small glass container in the fridge, 
• coated with oil and then wrapped in paper towels in the fridge, 
• coated with oil, wrapped in parchment-lined foil and then frozen in a freezer bag.  
• I stored the stems in a small plastic bag in the fridge.  

From left to right: coated with oil, wrapped in paper towels, wrapped in parchment-foil

One month later, the stems had some mold on them.  I scrubbed them clean and used them to make dal.  Next time I will freeze the stems.

The leaves coated with oil and stored in the fridge were starting to turn black in spots.  I threw out the bad leaves and used the rest in dal.

The  uncoated leaves stored in a glass container fared the best.  Next time, I will store more of them that way.  

I haven't yet used the frozen leaves.  I'll report back when I do.