Surya

Surya is a brand of Surya Foods, a UK supplier of Indian and Asian foods to grocers and caterers. Its frozen garlic cubes are made from crushed garlic and nothing else, frozen in a tray of small portions, and they are suitable for vegetarians and vegans and marked halal.

The cubes sit in frozen vegetables, part of frozen vegetables and coconut in our frozen department. The pack guide puts one cube at about four cloves of garlic, which makes measuring simple: one cube for a dal for four, two or three for a big pot of curry or a biryani for a crowd.

Drop a cube straight into hot oil or ghee after the cumin and onions, stir until it stops sizzling and smells sweet, then add tomatoes and spices. It melts into a dal tadka from our dals, a chana masala, a chicken karahi or a Sri Lankan curry, and into garlic butter for naan, garlic rice and Chinese style stir fries. Thawed and mashed, it goes into marinades for tikka and kebabs, and mixed with an equal amount of grated ginger it does the job of a fresh ginger garlic paste.

Keep the pack at -18°C, take out only the cubes you need and close the bag again. The cubes go into the pan from frozen, so there is no need to thaw them for cooking. For a jarred version that lives in the fridge once opened, see ginger garlic paste, and for dried garlic, browse ginger, garlic and onion powder.