Cook With Me - Chapter 2 (Spices, Spices, Spices)

Link To Chapter 1: Cook With Me - Mala's Kitchen (Chapter 1) - PoetrySoup.com

SPICES, SPICES, SPICES

Today let's talk about the five most important spices - to be used in indian recipes - in detail. In my next blog, I will touch upon the variety of flavours and usually what kind of recipes they are used for. We will also talk about, what we believe as the healing power of Spices.

Turmeric powder or Haldi powder is the first and foremost among spices in Bengali cooking. It is added to anything and everything, starting from lentils and vegetables all the way to fish and meat. It enhances the flavour and colour of the food, and it is known for its antiseptic quality, which is why fish and meat are meant to be coated with turmeric paste or powder before being cooked. 

                           Turmeric Roots

Interestingly, Turmeric paste is extremely good for skin-care, and can be applied as a mask. Believe it or not, I, as a teenager, used it, when the market was not overflowing with numerous commercial beauty-products. In India, I have always seen dried Turmeric roots in the market, which are hard to grind. In Chinese stores in North America, I see fresh and soft Turmeric roots, which I have tried in my cooking; pureed them in my blender, and kept them in the deep freezer in ice-cube trays. Whenever you need, get a cube or two. How convenient!

Turmeric Roots

Next spice needed for Indian dishes is Chilli Powder or Lanka. Hot dried up peppers are ground to make red chilli powder. Fresh green chillies are also added to some dishes to bring out a distinct flavour. Chillies are indispensable in Indian cooking (or may be not), although you can always balance the level of heat you would like to have in your curry. Of course every household has their own tolerance level.

RED CHILLI

                              CUMIN SEEDS

Cumin or Jeera seeds could be used as a whole or powdered. The seeds have a warm earthly flavour. It can be ground raw, or after being roasted on a skillet for a short period. If I am not running out of time, I prefer to roast them before grinding. This brings a whole new level of aroma. I use cumin powder mostly for my vegetarian dishes.

In the same way as cumin, coriander or dhania seeds are ground fresh, or ground after being roasted on a skillet till they turn darker. These seeds are supposed to have a nutty flavour, and are often used together with cumin seeds.

             Cumin Seeds               

                           Coriander Seeds

Mustard Seeds

Quite a few kinds of Mustard seeds are available on the market. The most common are - Black, White and Yellow. Different people have their own preferences, but black mustard seeds, which might have the strongest pungent flavour, are used the most. My mom used to say that you have to always grind mustard seeds with green chillies so as not to have a bitter taste. Apparently the angrier you are, the sharper the flavour is! Isn't that funny?! But grinding fresh green chillies would not be possible with a coffee-grinder, so I dry-grind the mustard seeds separately,  and then mix them together with a little bit of water.

These spices look so colourful that at one point, I, with my students, created a collage-painting using a variety of spices - whole (e.g. Fennel, Mustard), and powdered ( e.g. Turmeric, Chilli). The picture looked stunning, and my students had an awesome experience.

I spend a ridiculous amount of time watching shows by famous chefs on TV. They mostly present italian, mexican, chinese or simply north american dishes. That's understandable in north america, but I have my favourites, and I never get tired of watching the masters of the trade. This year I had the opportunity to watch Gordon Ramsay, a celebrity chef from England, trying his hand in Indian dishes (e.g. Chutney, Achar or Pickle) while also talking about the variety of spices used in the exotic cuisine. He did not forget to mention that he recently spent some time in India to learn more about the techniques and ingredients from real housewives!!! I have to admit, he was quite successful tackling the dishes, and I even found myself trying  his recipe for chutney which definitely is not the traditional way. In India, chutneys are usually made of tomatoes, or tamarind...he has added fruits like apples, pears, and apricots.

Indian cooking is all about spices - knowing the variety of spices grown in the Indian subcontinent, and learning how to use them to turn ordinary ingredients into something heavenly! There are a few major spices which are used in almost every recipe, and there are a lot more which are used to enhance the flavour and take day-to-day meals to a whole new level. A lot of these spices have medicinal properties too. Almost everybody now is aware of the properties of ginger which can help fight common cold and flu.

In my grandmother's days, cooking was a chore, not a fun. Still they created prized delicacies every single day. We can make cooking fun! Last summer, in my really creative days, I was painting on a piece of fabric laying it on my dining table, while humming and practising to the tunes of my favourite songs and a pot of irresistibly flavourful stew with chicken and colourful veggies was bubbling away on the stove. All of you are experts in multi-tasking; you can make cooking a creative, artistic, imaginative, inspiring, and of course mouth-watering activity. Your family is never going to order take-outs, or run to the restaurants at every little opportunity. 
 

Spices, Spices, Spices! That is the core of Indian cooking. When it comes to Bengal, it is the same! Fresh vegetables, fresh fish, fresh meat - everything is tied up in an exquisite way with the magical spices. Now we know about the five most basic spices - Turmeric, Chilli, Cumin, Coriander and Mustard.

Let's explore a few more - how they look like, what flavour they bring in, and which recipes they are used for. So, get ready to stock your pantry with a few more essential spices in Bengali kitchen. To many people, spicy means hot. Indian dishes are not always supposed to be fiery hot in order to be tasty. 

By adding the spices the ordinary ingredients become flavourful and aromatic! Can you believe, it is spice-trade which brought Persians and Arabs, Portuguese, and French, and even English, to India? A couple of brave men sailed for months facing adversities and risked their lives to find this mystical land of the East, to look for these precious objects! That is how Columbus found America instead of India, and ultimately Vasco-da-de-gama reached the coveted destination. 

Garam Masala, literally means " Hot Spices" in Hindi. It is actually three kinds of spices put together - Cinnamon, Cardamom, and Cloves. Depending on the recipes, these spices can be used whole, or ground together.

 Thecinnamonsticks or quills are the dried bark of a tree.  Cinnamon (and mostly the Ceylonese variety) can be found in stick/quill as well as powdered, and is used extensively in Indian cooking, and is generally for savory dishes. Often times a few bits of broken sticks are added as the oil heats up; this way the oil is flavored and the food is cooked in this fragrant oil. Sometimes it is dry roasted in a skillet before cooking, which intensifies the aroma.

Clovesare the second ingredient in Garam Masala. They are dried up flower buds. The fully-grown, unopened buds, are picked green and dried in the sun until they become dark brown and  are ready to be used for cooking. Clove is extensively used in Indian cooking. The flavor it brings to food is strong and warm. Clove is sometimes used to flavor spicy food where the whole clove is cooked in oil or ghee. Cardamomis the dried, ripe fruit from the cardamom plant, and it has a smoky, pungent aroma. It is often called "The Queen of Spices" because of its fragrance. Cardamom is a must in all kinds of flavourful dishes, such as, Pulao or Flavoured Rice, Biriyani,  Chicken and Meat dishes, and even aromatic vegetarian dishes as Aloo-Gobi (potato and cauliflower) or Chhanar Dalna (cottage cheese). Cardamom is grown in the evergreen forests of western ghats in South India. It can be used both whole or ground. Very interestingly, cardamom is used so much in Bengali dishes, including desserts, like Payasa (rice pudding) - the most important one for celebrations, although cardamom does not grow in Bengal. 

My cooking mostly leans towards North Indian cooking, and I use cardamom in everything! I am so curious to know why the fruit which grows mostly in South India, is used more in North and East Indian cooking. Isn't that fascinating?!

CARDAMOM

   Mustard seeds are tiny, black, pale yellow, brown or white balls, which release flavour when roasted. You will hear them pop when heated in oil. In South India, whole mustard seeds, along with Tur Dal and Curry leaves, are heated in oil to enhance flavour of their dishes - a technique called "Tadka". In Bengal, my experience with mustard seeds is, grinding them with green chillies, and using as a paste. The most popular dish with this paste is "Sarshe-Ilish" (Hilsha fish in mustard sauce), but this paste is  used with other fishes too, even with shrimps.

Tej Pata

In Sanskrit the name of these leaves is " Tamalpatra", which is not exactly the bay leaves we find in western world. It is a three-veined leaf used to flavour curries. When slightly heated in oil, the aromatic leaves release fragrant flavour, and increase aroma of the dish. Starting from biriyani, Tej pata is used in both meat dishes, like chicken or mutton curry, and also vegetarian dishes, as alu gobi (potato-cauliflower), or alu dum (Potato Curry).

To be continued ....

Dear Soupers, 

I really apologize for the formatting of this blog. I can not control so many things - even the font-size, capitalized words, bold letters and paragraphs!!!! This area needs a bit of upgrading! 

Thanks for your attention and feedback. Warm wishes ~ 

Malabika