There are many spices in Indian cuisine. So much that india is called the land of spices. Spice traders throughout history have flourished with the help of indian spices. In my recipes i make different spice blends for every dish. That means each dish uses a unique spice blend. I am no advocate of using store bought packaged spice blends. Homemade spice blends are fresh and contain no preservatives or ever artificial flavour enhancers. So, today i will talk about a very well known blend of dry spices that is aromatic and is used to flavour almost every other spicy/savory dish. This is a all purpose spice mix as mentioned in the title. Its called garam masala. Its known for its aroma and warmth it imparts on a dish. The ingredients are generally dry roasted and made into a fine powder, which is used towards the end of the cooking process. Some times the ingredients are blended without dry roasting in which case it should be added during the frying process known as Bhuna or just before a low and slow cooking process. So as to let the raw spice blend cook properly along with the other ingridients. The raw garam masala spice blend can be used to marinate meats. The dry roasted version is added towards the end so as to avoid the burning or over cooking of the spice blend which makes it bitter takes away its flavour and aroma. Now i will be sharing with you my own homade garam masala blend which i use in certain recipes which ask for a premade garam masala spice blend. Note: Remember to store all spice blends in air tight containers otherwise they will go bad, clumpy and lose thier signature aroma and flavour.
Raakshas special all purpose garam masala blend
Equipment
- Grinder
Ingredients
- 10 gram fennel seed
- 3 grams black peppercorns
- 10 grams coriander seeds
- 10-15 grams cumin seeds
- 2 star anise
- 2 black cardomomn
- 8 green cardomomn
- 4-5 gram turmeric powder
- 8 grams clove
- 1 gram nutmeg
- 3 pieces mace
- 1 stick cinamon 5 inch
- 1 tsp red chilly powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 bayleaf medium
Instructions
- Grind every thing into a fine powder and strain. Grind the grits.
- Repeat the process to get maximum ammount of spice powder and discard the fibres and grits.
- This will proude 66 grams of garam masala powder.
Notes
- You can also dry roast the ingridients before grinding but as metioned in the article the dry roasted version is to be used differently.