The Spice Bowl
Everyone has a skeleton in their closet. Mine just happens to be a spice bowl in my cupboard.
It
looks innocent enough; it's a big glass bowl probably intended for
family-style salads, and inside are little bags of spices I've been
collecting over the years for my Indian food experiments. The bowl used
to be a box (or, more accurately, a tupperware container), but as the
contents kept growing, I had to upgrade to the bowl.
The problem
is that I'm highly ashamed of my spice bowl. In fact, probably very few
of my friends have ever even seen it. If I'm cooking while they're
around, I make sure I have all the spices I need neatly laid out on the
counter before they arrive. I keep it stowed away in the pot cupboard,
high on a shelf that nothing else of importance is stored on. Nobody
ever looks there unless they have a reason to.
The fact is that
I used to have a perfectly reasonable number of spices, a packet of
cinnamon and some cloves, nutmeg, perhaps some curry and some cayenne
pepper. They hung out in the front of my cupboard, next to the tea and
sugar and ketchup, just like everyone else's spices. Then I discovered
my love of Indian food, and things changed.
The few who have
seen The Bowl ask why I don't simply get a spice rack. I just laugh.
There were 42 spices in my bowl at last count. Have you ever seen a
spice rack that holds 42 spices? Didn't think so.
I'm not sure
why I'm so ashamed of it. Maybe it's the knowledge that I possess more
spices than most Indian cooks that makes me feel just a teeny bit
obsessive. Maybe it's the fact that I've never been to India, and I
cook from cookbooks and buy my spices at the Middle Eastern shop on the
corner that makes me feel as if I'm somehow cheating. Maybe it's
just the complete chaos inside the bowl and the excessive amount of
time it takes me to find what I need. I don't know. I just know that
knowledge of its existence is not freely handed around.
Many of
the spices in that bowl represent memories, souvenirs from trips I've
taken and places I used to live. Many have crossed oceans with me.
Spices aren't cheap, after all, and some I use so rarely that they
stick around for years. No matter where I live, however, I can't
imagine one of my cupboards not having that penetrating mixture of
dusky, spicy, slightly stale aromas. Those spices have almost
become part of the family.
Maybe someday I'll figure out what it
is about that bowl that compels me to hide it. But for now, as long as
the food I make with those spices is so tasty, does anyone really need
to know?
Masala Chai, Perfected
1 cup water
3/4 cup (180ml) whole milk
1/4 cup (60ml) evaporated milk or light cream
1 teaspoon loose black tea
1 (2-inch/5cm) cinnamon stick, broken
5 green cardamom pods, slightly crushed
5 whole cloves
1 (1/4-inch/1/2cm) slice fresh ginger, bashed a bit
2 whole peppercorns, slightly crushed
(optional additions, including mace, star anise, nutmeg or vanilla - not traditional but nice for a change)
sugar, to taste
Bring everything to a boil in a heavy-bottomed pot, then reduce the heat to medium low. For the first few minutes, you'll have to monitor the pot, taking it off the heat if necessary, because the violently bubbling brew will want to escape its confines and flood your stovetop. After that stage has passed, however, you should just let it quietly simmer for about half an hour. The longer you wait, the better it will be! At the end you should have just over a cup of liquid, depending on how long it's been boiling. Strain the liquid into cups to serve.
A word of warning: it's quite rich. Of course you can substitute lowfat versions for anything above. Or you could just serve it for dessert!
Friday, April 8, 2005
Reader Comments (17)
i sal(one more l?)ut(or one more t?)e ur blog for being elegant n stylish! would u mind putting that recipe for the amazingly comforting spinach-cheese-dip-kinda-thing?
(maybe u would make 10 kilos of it for our wedding?) (please..)
love n kisses! googs.
There is no doubting the fact that spices do tend to give Indian food their character, but I've always felt that their role in Indian food has been a bit exaggerated by the West (Tunda kebab not withstanding). Most Indians won't be able to distinguish more than 5-6 spices and that's the number of spices that you would usually find in an Indian mother's cupboard.
Having said that, Indian cuisine tends to vary a lot based upon where you are in India. And had Mr. Tunda been alive, he would have personally told you, you've got nothing to be ashamed of. Get that bowl out where we can all see it!
As for the 160 spices, I agree that there's no way the human palate could make out that many different flavors in one bite of kebab. I'm also not surprised that the typical Indian mother would only have 5 or 6 in her cupboard, but those 5 or 6 would probably be completely different from region to region, no? My problem is that since I don't claim allegiance to one particular place, I am compelled to experiment with food from all over India, and consequently my repertoire of 'basic' spices is enormous! That said, there are packages of spices I've never even opened, having seen them at the shop yet not having found a recipe that uses them (e.g. amchoor powder and kalonji seeds)...
But really, thanks for your support and I'm already feeling better about getting the truth about my bowl out in the open. Maybe soon I'll actually be confident enough to let you meet it ;)
Anyhow, thanks for the comment :)
I just wanted to say that if your spices are mixes or blends and they are open and are over 2-3 years old, consider trashing them and getting yourself a spanking new set of spices. When spices are ground and mixed in blends, they tend to lose their flavor quicker than whole spices. The exposure to air and moisture adds to this and sometimes, you could even end up with stuff growing on the spice blends. The latter depends entirely on the humidity and temperatures that prevail.
That said, I have never made chai with evaporated milk or cream. I am considering adding this to the menu when we celebrate my friend's 50th birthday with a special vegetarian Indian dinner in a couple of weeks.
I used to have a similar collection of spices, but donated them to friends when I left home to travel in Asia for a year. Like yours, my source for them were the Asian and Middle-Eastern stores, so I ended up with large bags that were difficult to use up quickly.
My longterm sollution was to protect each separately in freezer-rated ziplocs, and freeze them, keeping only a three-month supply in individual recycled spice jar. Also, I would buy whole spices as much as possible, and use them freshly ground as needed, same as they do in rural Asia.
Enjoying the local foods, and looking forward to replenishing my kitchen when I am rerooted in the West.
Hi Melissa, I have looooads of spices, too. You've just tempted me to count them, and list them! I, too, cook Indian food, and because of that have acquired quite a collection of spices! Including the dried mango powder, and kalonji seeds that you mentioned! And no, I haven't cooked with them yet, but I do have two recipes that I've been meaning to try: naan (which is why I bought kalonji) and a prawn coconut dish that uses amchoor, and sounds really interesting.
Also, I am always so tempted to buy new spices, but then I feel like I need to be using up the ones that I already have... But I love smelling them, and even seeing them! aaaaah
I'm addooorree aromas and fragrances in general - I'm absolutely hopeless when it comes to that! Actually, I've written a post about my favourite cooking aromas. Would you like to tell me which ones are yours? Here you go: http://maninas.wordpress.com/2007/05/25/aromas-why-i-love-cooking/
Hey Melissa, you have a very neat blog here & I have enjoyed going through a lot of posts. I see that you enjoy Indian food. Believe me I too am in the habit of collecting all sorts of spices, n I have so many that I cant count them, n no way will they come in a spice wrack, so I have brought small containers of the same quality to stack my loot!!
Masala chai is a favorite - have you ever tried ginger tea. Its awesome
I would invite you to visit my blog to check out some authentic North Indian recipes.
Only 42 spices? Amateur! <grin> I do understand. My spice collection was the reason for me holding 4 tupperware parties so I could get enough spice jars to contain them. Then I moved overseas and left all my spice jars behind. But it hasn't taken me long to build up a new collection, and now build up a giant collection of jars here. sigh... but you can't do without them can you?