Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Garam Masala - an Indian spice mix that's great on a variety of food, especially when you are in the mood for something different.

I'm in this limbo place between being tired, but not wanting to go to bed nor feeling like reading at the moment. So, I decided to peruse drafts of posts that I have meant to finish, but never have gotten around to and realized I completely forgot to do this one. I actually thought I had. Not sure how I spaced out on this, but I wanted to be sure to share this spice mix, because it's wonderful and an excellent addition to curries or any dish you want a little extra bang in flavor. I often use this mix in scrambled eggs in the morning, which my daughter always seems to enjoy.

Garam Masala recipes vary depending on the region they come from within India. This particular recipe comes from the cookbook Curry Cuisine, but I think you can have fun experimenting with your own favorite version. The basics ingredients of most garam masala recipes are coriander seeds, cumin seeds, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, mace, peppercorns and cinnamon.


What You'll Need
 ~ 1⅓ cup

3 tbsp coriander seeds
3 tbsp cumin seeds
20 green cardamom pods
10 cinnamon sticks, 1 in long (cinnamon breaks or cuts with a sharp knife fairly easily)
2 tbsp cloves
10 blades of mace
10 black caramom bods
½ nutmeg
1 tbsp black peppercorns
4 cinnamon leaves or bay leaves
1 tbsp dried rose petals
1 tbsp fennel seeds


Getting Started

1. Over medium-high heat, heat a dry skillet and then add all your spices. Roast them in the pan until they begin to crackle. Stir them until they begin to smell aromatic.

2. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Store mixture whole or grind in a spice grinder or with a mortar and pestle

Enjoy!






9 comments:

  1. Yum!! Thank you for sharing this! I am always on the look out for good indian spices. Will have to hunt down these ingredients and make some!!

    Hey, how are you doing?

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  2. Hi Marillyn! Things are going good, but we are staying very busy. We've found a home and a car, hurray! We move in about 5 weeks. All is going well with the pregnancy too.

    This last weekend I made of version of your recipe for the chai chickpeas. So good. Took them to a potluck and they went over great! I tried to leave a comment on your site, but not sure it went through.

    Hope all is well with you too!

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  3. Thank you for sharing this recipe. Some could use this to enhance some of their favorite dishes.

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  4. Therese... I feel like I have come across your blog at the right time. My aunt, Joy Elskamp, sent me a link to your blog a few weeks ago and said I'd be interested in following you. I definitely feel like God has put another strong call on my heart to further explore eating healthily. (I first started my journey the year leading up to starting a family.) Now, I am preganant with my second child and the desire to honor God in the way I eat and the way I teach my family to eat is big.

    Anyways, this will be quite a process I know. I will probably have many questions but my first is this. I live in Wisconsin and do not have access to raw milk. What's the next best thing in your opinion? Organic Whole Milk (I've looked around and it all looks ultra-pasteurized)? And will I be able to substitute it in your recipes to make things like cheese, sour cream, etc?

    THANKS FOR SHARING YOUR JOURNEY!!!

    -Jill

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  5. Hi Jill, nice to hear from you and awesome that your are looking more closely at the role food plays in our overall health! First, raw milk can be found in Wisconsin, but it has gotten more difficult, especially with some of the current cases in court. What I'd recommend is checking our realmilk.com and also get involved with a local Weston Price chapter in your area. You can go to Westonaprice.org to find more info. on local chapters. Weston Price members are almost all huge supporters of raw milk and can connect you to sources you might not normally hear about other than through word of mouth. As far as other types of milk go, your best bet is organic, non-homogenized milk, preferably from grass-fed cows. Check out the co-ops for this as the farms who produce this milk are often too small to meet the demand of a large grocery store, nor to large chain stores encourage the purchasing of products of this type. I would stay away from ultra pasteurized milk completely. It is void of just about everything important in milk and can often promote more allergy issues as it's far more difficult to digest. It can not be used in making cultured products like kefir, yogurt, sour cream or cheeses. Sadly, organic milk is often ultra pasteurized like you mentioned. Good for you for reading the labels closely. I have often wondered what I would do if I couldn't get organic milk that wasn't ultra pasteurized and have decided that in the end I'd just not drink it and instead look for goats milk or make my own coconut or almond milk. Goats milk makes wonderful cheese!

    I know there are some awesome milk sources in Wisconsin, they just take some digging to find them. The co-ops at the very least should carry at least one type of organic milk that isn't ultra pasteurized. I think in the end what's best to do if you can find exactly what you are looking for is to research each brand, time consuming I know, but you may find some milk brands from smaller farms aren't certified organic, but do actually take very good care of their cows rarely using antibiotics, the cows are fed grass and do have regular access to sunlight.

    Hope that helps a bit!
    Thanks for checking out my site and please tell Joy I said hi!

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  6. Remember that Bengali households still are known for their amazing food culture and this fact is known world-wide :)

    tanSEN was bengali my dear friend, so were a lot of other people! want to see the entire list as it stands today? so was subash chandra bose and sri aurobindo :)



    and i can name a million others and i am proud to say our greateness can be exerted beyond our national borders.
we are the fifth largest speakers!

    here are two lists to shut your mouth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_people


    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bengalis


    these guys are not just making India proud but half the world knows about these guys dude :)

    we bengalis have won pretty much every award in the world stage
you name it we have it and we are damn proud of what we have :)
its the only country in the world which took rebellion because it couldn't speak its mother tongue and it won! and won so hard that the UN had to adopt that day as the international language day, which celebrates languages from all over the world.

    did you know that the FAMOUS SEARS TOWER is architectured by another bengali?

    ~KAMONASISH AAYUSH MAZUMDAR

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  7. KAMONASISH AAYUSH MAZUMDAR
    Management Trainee, Aircel
    MBA Graduate, IMT Ghaziabad

    ....and yet, look at the person's closed-mindedness!

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  8. We have to drive to Cooper City for all our Indian grocery needs because we live in Weston, which doesn’t have any store like that. Not yet. As people who have been living here for the last two decades, we would appreciate an Indian grocery Weston store. Then we won’t need to go anywhere else!

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  9. Thanks for sharing Garam masala preparation....Nice blog... Masala Ingredients

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