Alastair Little, Richard Whittington

Curry Spices

Appears in
The Daily Mail Modern British Cookbook
The Daily Mail Modern British Cookbook

By Alastair Little and Richard Whittington

Published 1998

  • About
It is a good idea to buy individual whole spices and make masalas (spice mixes, see Garam Masala) for curries rather than buying ready-made curry powders. This way, after toasting the spices to accentuate their aromatic quality, they can be ground fresh for every dish. You can also ring the changes by mixing them in different quantities or leaving one or two out, while you are free to use spices individually to good effect. One thinks of cumin and coriander particularly in this context.

Buy spices in small amounts, starting with cumin, coriander, black peppercorns, cloves, fennel and mustard seeds. Other spices to start with are cinnamon, cardamom, ground turmeric and fenugreek. Fresh additions, like ginger root, coriander leaf, garlic, shallots, mint and hot chillies, make all the difference and, as with the majority of ingredients in Indian cooking, they can be used in many dishes that are not Indian per se. The great thing is to use different spice combinations so you can make a number of dishes which have very different flavours and textures without going to any great trouble.