Malaysian Curry Powder: Meat and Fish Blends, What’s in Them, and How They’re Used

Malaysian curry powder is a ground spice blend for Malaysian curries, built mostly on coriander and chile with cumin, fennel and turmeric. Both Baba’s labels we checked list chile second, right after coriander, while the USDA’s minimum list for curry powder has no chile at all.¹ Baba’s also sells separate versions for meat and for fish, and the spices differ between the two. There’s no single recipe. Below: how published ingredient lists compare, what we can document about its background, and how to cook with it.

At a glance

What’s in it

The two labels below are both from Baba’s, a Malaysian brand, as transcribed by two retailers. Next to them are a bylined home recipe for chicken curry, which uses whole and ground spices instead of a ready-made powder, and the U.S. government’s minimum list for curry powder in general.

Meat versus fish. On these two labels, the fish blend lists fenugreek and skips the cinnamon, cardamom, star anise, cloves, nutmeg and bay leaf that the meat blend lists.²³ None of the sources we checked explain why, so we won’t guess. One caution: the retailer that transcribed the meat-curry list also shows an unlikely ingredient list (“100% groundnuts”) for the fish-curry product, so take its transcriptions with a grain of salt and check the packet.

Chile near the top. Both Baba’s labels list chile second, right after coriander.²³ The USDA minimum list for curry powder has no chile at all.¹

Malaysian rules. Malaysia’s Food Regulations 1985 include a specific standard for curry powder, regulation 333A, next to one for mixed spice.⁴ The copy we checked didn’t include the text of the standard, so we couldn’t confirm what it requires.

Flavor

Somerset Foodie, a retailer, describes Baba’s fish curry powder as warm rather than aggressive, aromatic rather than one-dimensional.² A meat curry powder like this one leads with toasted coriander and fennel, with chile heat and the sweet spices (cinnamon, star anise, clove) behind. A fish curry powder is sharper and more savory. You’ll often read that Malaysian curry powder is dominated by sweet and savory notes, with sweetness from cinnamon and cardamom. Going by the labels above, that fits the meat blend but not the fish blend.

Background

A curry powder, not a masala. Britannica says curry powder was adapted by British settlers in India, while in traditional Indian cooking spice mixtures are called masala and made at home.⁷ Malaysian curry powder sits on the curry-powder side of that line: a commercial, ready-ground blend. It isn’t a variant of garam masala, which is a different blend.

The British in Penang and Malacca. Britannica dates the British settlement at Penang to 1786. The Straits Settlements were four trade centers, Penang, Singapore, Malacca and Labuan. The first three became a crown colony in 1867, and the colony was broken up in 1946.⁸

You’ll see a few other claims we couldn’t trace to a source we could open: that Malaysia’s love of spice comes from its centuries as a hub of the spice trade, that Malaysian curry powder blends British preferences with Indian technique, and that its popularity reflects Malay, Chinese and Indian communities sharing recipes. They may be fair, but we’re not presenting them as fact.

How it is used

In curries with coconut milk. Wok & Skillet’s kari ayam (Malaysian chicken curry) cooks a ground spice paste and whole spices with coconut milk, water, chicken and potatoes, and serves the curry with rice, roti jala or white bread. The spice paste also carries onion or shallots, garlic, ginger or galangal, lemongrass and candlenuts.⁶ In a recipe like that, a powder replaces the dry spices, not the fresh aromatics.

Meat or fish. Veena’s describes Baba’s meat curry powder as made for traditional meat dishes,³ and Somerset Foodie calls the fish curry powder a Malaysian kitchen essential.² Use the blend that matches your dish.

Technique. Like other curry powders, it usually gets fried in oil before the liquid goes in. America’s Test Kitchen recommends blooming ground spices in fat for anywhere from 30 seconds to several minutes.⁹ Lots of cooks stir the powder into a paste with a little water first so it doesn’t scorch.

We couldn’t confirm the claims that Malaysian curry powder is used for beef satay, or that recipes calling for it usually add belacan.

Buying and storage

• Meat or fish. Check which one the package says. The spice lists differ.
• Read the full label. Some blends include lentils (dhall) and rice.
• Storage. The University of California Cooperative Extension lists air, light, moisture and heat as what speeds up flavor and color loss in spices.¹⁰ Keep the powder sealed and cool. We didn’t find a shelf-life figure from a regulator or standards body.

Safety

Lead in spices. A ten-year review of spice samples tested by the New York City health department found detectable lead in more than half of them.¹¹ The abstract doesn’t break the results out by blend. See turmeric for the lead-chromate problem in that spice.

Health claims

You’ll often see curry powders credited with supplying iron, vitamin C and fiber and with preventing constipation, heart disease and colorectal cancer. We couldn’t support any of those claims for the blend from the sources we reviewed. On two of its spices, NCCIH says there isn’t enough evidence to conclude that turmeric or curcumin is beneficial for any health purpose,¹² and that the research on fenugreek and blood sugar includes many studies that weren’t high quality.¹³ We’re not making any health claim for Malaysian curry powder.

Substitutes and comparisons

• Curry powder, the general profile, and cooking with curry powder
• Other styles: Madras, Jamaican, Japanese and vindaloo curry powders
• Curry paste vs. curry powder and garam masala vs. curry powder
• Is curry powder spicy? and too much curry powder
• The spices: coriander, cumin, fennel seed, turmeric, star anise, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, fenugreek
• Fresh aromatics in Malaysian curries: lemongrass, galangal, curry leaves