The Curry Club
since 1982

50g

Regular Paprika as sold in Asian spice packs is mild and mainly used for colouring curries such as Tikka Masala. It is cheaper than Spanish Sweet Noble Paprika because it is generally adulterated with the stalks and pith of the capsicum. Sweet Noble comprises only the sun-dried flesh of the Spanish red capsicum and is mild and full of flavour.  

Use it in your Chicken Tikka Masala spice mix to make the recipe tastier than ever.

£2.50 + £1p p&p

About Sweet Noble Paprika

Paprika  is the Hungarian name for capsicum pepper.  Having been exported from the Americas by the Poruguese in the sixteenth century peppers were introduced to Hungary by Ottoman Turks.  Over the centuries, paprika was cultivated, especially in the Szeged and Kalocsa dsitricts.  At first paprika was deep red in colour and very pungent.  Over the years the pungency has been bred out of Hungarian paprika, so what we now expect is a tasty deep red powder used for flavouring and colouring purposes, but not for heat.  It is the prime ingredient for flavour and colour in Goulash. Hungary's 1937 Nobel prize-winner Albert Szent-Györgyi discovered that paprika is unusually rich in vitamin C. Being a major crop, numerous other countries have become paprika producers.  These include Bulgaria, Morocco, Portugal, South Africa and Jugoslavia.  Minor growers include, Chile, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, Mexico, Romania, Turkey, Russia and the USA.( In America, any ground red pepper can be sold as paprika).   What we get may be wide of the mark. It may be mild or it may be hot.  It can range in colour from rust to crimson, and it can have aduterations (unspecified additions). The worst paprika will even be bitter. 

The real thing from Hungarian or Spanish peppers is undoubtedly best. 

Spain's paprika, called  pimieñto para pimeñton is made from a different pepper to Hungary's but Spanish paprika ranks as second only to Hungary's in flavour and quality.  Until recently the Spanish marketed their best paprka as Hungarian.  Following objections, they dropped that name and now call it Sweet Noble Paprika.  Why ‘Noble’?  It is the Hungarian description of best grade.