This is really incredible. There are a ton of ingredients that go into this, and you can really taste the different flavors. There are chunks of curry leaves and lemongrass throughout the package, and you get bites of different ingredients that give individual flavor such as when biting into a celery seed or a piece of lemon grass. When adding these spices to yesterday’s meal that was more of a broth, and letting the spices simmer…. The smells were incredible. It reminded me of my local Chinese Takeout that has a dish called “Singapore Mei Fun, not only in smell, but the yellow color with the red chili flakes. Which I then connected the dots as this spice mix is called ” Curry Crab Singapore-Style Curry Mix.” Which means the spice-mix must be very similar in ingredients, which is a pleasant surprise for me, as “Singapore Mei Fun” was one of my favorite dishes from the local place, before I started eating strictly “organic” and stopped eating out at such places. Note: the name I mentioned above, which is what is on my spice package, is different from the above pictured bag, but the ingredients still seem to be the same as listed above. I will say my only negative about this is that this can be salty, as salt is the first ingredient, so you have to be careful when adding your own salt to your dishes. This was the case the first 2 times I added this mix to already salted food, such as the potatoes I had already salted before adding to the rest of my dish. Today’s dish worked out a lot better as I had not salted anything, and even added a little more salt at the end, but not sure If I should have just added more blend to the broth, since the water dilutes everything including the saltiness. More experimentation is needed. Either way, I would love for this blend to come in a salt-free version(I believe every spice mix offering should have a salt and sugar free version of their regular salted/sweetened ones. I’m not a huge fan of pre-salted/sweetened mixes myself, as I like to add that myself to get the saltiness/sweetness to my liking). Overall this is a really good mix, and I highly recommend it to those who like curry, enjoy spice/heat, and enjoy Asian-Style dishes. This is definitely a mix that will be a great hit for someone who never had it before and enjoys the exotic flavors of ingredients such as lemongrass. Initially I was going to give this a 4/5 because of the saltiness being too much and overpowering for me, which was a disappointment, but today’s meal made me believe that it can be less salty than the other meals. I believe the dilution in water helped balance out the saltiness, so that is something to note if you’re just adding this directly onto foods or in a marinade or coating to let sit, vs a soup/curry that would be more watery. Either way, I’m buying another package with this next order I’m placing shortly, so it isn’t as if I will stop buying this. I will just have to manage the saltiness of my food, and hope that Pinch will make a Salt-Free Version…. Thank you Pinch for another Winner Blend!
