Spice blends are a great way to create flavoursome meals at home from scratch. Home-toasted mixes can easily be created from shop bought powders and will provide your dishes with a superior flavour to ready-made curries or sauces. Tehseen Majothi is Head Deli Chef at Bristol’s Sweet Mart; an Aladdin’s cave of spices and exotic ingredients. Below, she imparts her culinary expertise:
INDIAN SPICE BLENDS
The Indian spice tray is vibrant with colour and aroma. It’s a real treat on the palette and the choices are endless. If you do your research, you will find that specific whole spices and powdered spices form the basis of many Indian curries. When creating an Indian spice mix at home, use a pestle and mortar to grind whole spices such as cumin seeds, coriander seed, methi (fenugreek seeds), rye (mustard seeds), ajwain (carom seeds), cinnamon, dried red chillies, whole black pepper, cloves and black cardamom. You may also wish to use powdered spices, such as chilli powder, turmeric, coriander, cumin, garam masala and Kashmiri chilli powder; a handy spice for its rich colour and for those who like the flavour of chillies without the heat.
Your homemade Indian spice blends are best stored in an airtight container or in a specially designed spice dish. It is best to make and store little amounts at a time. This way, your spices will always be fresh. Dry spices tend to stay fresh for longer. You will know if the spices are past their best when you notice a change in colour, the spice smell has more or less disappeared, and the taste is flavourless.
BASIC SPICE BLENDS
The elder women in my family have played a huge role in my culinary learning and I am blessed with a creative mother who doesn’t believe in waste. When we first moved to the UK, money was scarce, and she would regularly recycle leftover food and create entirely new dishes by simply adding a spice or two to the dish. This kept variety going and helped minimised waste.
With this frugal attitude in mind, you can create an easy vegetarian curry with a very simple spice blend of cumin and mustard seeds, chilli powder and turmeric. For a basic non-vegetarian curry, add a cinnamon stick to the basic spice blend of coriander, cumin, chilli, turmeric powder and garam masala. Onions, ginger, garlic, tomatoes and herbs will make up the bulk and texture of the sauce, but the spices will add depth and flavour. Bear in mind the following tips:
- The spices themselves have to be cooked. You can do this in a temper (Tarka) or within the tomatoes.
- It’s a good idea to add some water to powdered spices when cooking, to prevent them from burning.
- Make sure you use enough oil during the cooking process. Once the curry is cooked, the oil is released and appears on the top, indicating that the sauce is ready. The excess oil can always be drained away. As long as you are doing this, there is no risk of your curry failing!
To find out more about Bristol Sweet Mart, visit their website at www.sweetmart.co.uk