Someone kindly gave me a jar of home made garam masala today. When I asked what spices had gone into making it I was told that it has coriander, white cumin, black cumin, green cardamom, black cardamom, black pepper, fennel, star anise, cloves, nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon sticks in it. It smells great, but then it started me thinking...if you cook a dish that doesn't have fennel and star anise in it, surely by adding a teaspoon of this stuff towards the end would change the overall flavour of the dish? I mean, if the dish doesn't say to use anise flavours then by adding them in with this GM surely it will completely change the dish?

And on that note, I know it is a garam masala but it contains ingredients that I would never add to GM, so does anyone have any ideas as to how I can use this stuff up?

Is star anise used in Indian cookery?

Sid

GM was originally, a north Indian thing, like an English 'mixed spice', a fixed recipe of mostly 'foreign' spices, from China/Burma/Moluccas. Mostly, it would be green or brown cardamom, nutmeg/mace, cassia/cinnamon and cloves, that is all, together with black pepper from India, of course.

Regional differences came later. It was the thing which said a dish was Moghul based, as most of the spices came from trade with other countries. It was, perhaps, the secret ingredient cooks/chefs used in those times.

Sid, I think you have the right attitude to your friends GM, which is just a load of spices mixed together without rhyme or reason.

Star anise is used in places like Cochin in Kerala, where trade with China would have brought it in, initially.

I think every non-Indian used to experiment with spice mixes, but as I get older (and some say wiser!) I tend to simplify the spices, and let the other ingredients shine through.

Its not GM as we know it :-) It sounds more like a complete "curry" powder to me...

Thats the joys of cooking, there are billions of people and everyone has their own ideas and quirks... You are right though, if you add it to a recipe that calls for GM that only is expected to be made up from "peppercorns, bay leaf, black cardamon, cloves and cinnamon" then yes its going to add a different slant on it !

Steve

just for info, bay leaf is not Indian, and is not part of GM. If leaves are used, it will be tej patta (cassia leaf) and taste of, erm, cassia, so there's no point in putting it into GM, unless there was no cassia in it to start with. Same goes for bay leaf, which has a major component which is the same as in green cardamom, namely 8-cineol, so if the gm has green cardamom in, it's rather a waste to put in bay leaves.

Steve, I had thought about curry powder actually. I thought about mixing in some turmeric and garlic powder, but incidentally...it met an unfortunate accident with the toilet just now...and would you believe it...it got flushed away.

Sid

Lapis, my family in India, immediate and extended, have always added bay leaves to garam masala. I am not sure how long it has been so, but it has been part of Indian Garam masala in Uttar Pradesh/northern India at least, probably a Mogul influence. If you buy whole garam masala packets in north India, they contain bay leaves.

As I am sure Lapis has mentioned before, the bay leaf tree that we have here, Laurus nobilis, is not the same as the one that grows in India, though Indian bay leaf is often described as such. Gernot Katzer lists it as Cinnamomum tejpata. The leaves of Indian tejpatta are different from the Laurus nobilis, they have parallel veins and have a different smell.

This is a recipe from the famous T-V and internet chef Sanjeev Kapoor, though I have not personally seen people in north India add mace and nutmeg to GM;

? 10 to 12 blades mace

? 8 to 10 cinnamon sticks

? 25 whole cloves

? 25 green cardamom pods

? 10 to 12 black cardamom pods

? 8 to 10 bay leaves

? 8 teaspoons cumin seeds

? 4 teaspoons whole black peppercorns

? 1/2 teaspoons grated nutmeg

I must admit, I add bay leaves to my GM more out of a learnt habit than any scientific reason, like most of my cooking. I sometimes add green cardamoms to it, but never cumin, because I keep ground cumin separate (both raw and dry roasted) and use them as and when I feel it is needed.

sid, what were you doing with it in toilet, or shouldn't one ask!!!

Hmmm...I thought if I left the jar in the toilet with the lid off it would make the lav smell nice. Then I decided to pick the jar up to move it slightly to the left (it's the OCD in me), and would you believe it, I slipped and the entire contents of the jar went down the toilet. I thought to myself, "Oh no...what a choker."

While on the subject of GM I was thinking about how all the recipes for making it differ quite a lot from what it should really contain. I have some recipes in a book that say to use a desert spoon of it, but I would never use a desert spoon of the potent stuff that I make. Incidentally, when you look at the recipe for GM in that book it is bulked up with coriander seed and cumin seed, so I can see why it calls for a desert spoon.

So, due to the fact that a lot of people add cumin and/or coriander seeds to their GM mix, would you say that when we come across a recipe that says to use one teaspoon of GM, that we should really only use half a teaspoon if we are using the potent stuff that doesn't contain cumin and coriander? Thinking on, I imagine a lot of people are using recipes for GM that contains fillers.

Sid

"I imagine a lot of people are using recipes for GM that contains fillers."

I guess almost all proprietary ones do! Amount of garam masala in a recipe will depend upon how potent yours is. I keep mine in a a little 'shaker' bottle, you know the type Schwartz use and just sprinkle it on top, amount depending upon the recipe and quantity of the dish. You have to go by the aroma you are looking for.

This is one of the reason why you can't be exact in the amount of spices. Some people buy the best available, while others use the common, everyday variety. You have to follow your nose and your taste buds in the end. That is why, when people come for a course with me, I try to make them smell as many ingredients as possible, so they get to know spices individually.

I have a well known brand of Garam Masala (bought when someone wasn't reading labels and picked up the wrong thing I hasten to add !) and it has Oregano in it amongst other things !

Steve

Oregano? Wow! I've never seen that before. I have come across recipes for it that use mustard, chilli, garlic and chilli powder. From what I have seen there are as many varieties of it as there are people using it.

its a well known supermarket type brand of spices..

full list -

coriander seed (49%), black pepper(6%), allspice,cumin(6%),cardamon,turmeric,nutmeg,ginger,cloves, bay leaves(3%), cassia, chilli powder (chilli pepper,cumin,salt,oregano,garlic), cayenne pepper

I kid you not !

and thats is on one of those sprinkle type jars labelled "Garam Masala"

what stuns me is they use "chilli powder" which isn't just chilli powder, its a chilli powder mix !(which is where the oregano comes in)

Steve

I think I may have found a way to describe the use of gm.

I have made, about 4 years ago, some perfumes and aftershave from essential oils dissolved in alcohol. It was quite successful. You may know that perfumes are formulated according to age old traditions. These ideas think of the perfume (well, most of them) as containing three layers of fragrance, called notes. Although these notes may have different names, they can be referred to as top, middle and base notes. With a perfume (and aftershave), the top notes disappear quite quickly, then the middle notes disappear, then the base notes, although these last ones can linger for up to 24 hours.

I think the same ideas can be applied to spices in food, and how they are used. Many internet sites carry lists of essential oil tables, containing notes, and most of the time they agree quite well, but some may not. I chose ones that help to illustrate my idea.

It seems that the main ingredients in GM (cassia/cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg/mace, cloves and black pepper*) fall into the middle and base notes. In fact, pepper, cardamon and nutmeg/mace are middle notes, and cassia/cinnamon and cloves are base notes, although cinnamon (but not cassia) can tend towards middle notes, too, it appears. Of the other spices I've reference to, all except fennel are considered top notes, fennel is middle to top.

This suggests that the gm spices will remain in the cooking the longest, with other spices and herbs, such as coriander, cumin, mints and citrus notes being lost the quickest. This is why it is important to extract the base note spices (GM) into oil, first, and add the other spices later in the cooking.

• I don't put black pepper in my GM mix, but add it freshly ground when required.

HTH

? Lapis 2010

My head hurts!!

It makes a lot of sense now, all those visits to various perfume factories on holidays. They all talked about Top notes; immediate or initial scent, Middle notes; a little while later and Base notes; the ones that become apparent a while after you have been wearing it.

I wonder if taste buds also have a similar pattern; immediate taste, after you have chewed/moved the food around your mouth a bit and what remains after you are finished, the bit that makes memories of food! Over to you Lapis.

Meanwhile, I will continue with the wisdom of generations, add whole GM spices to hot oil at the beginning of cooking and ground GM to the hot dish at the end, with lid closed for flavours to infuse. It seems to work well.

I go with Lapis's garam masala -- cumin added may be occasionally excusable, but the rest are just to add bulk. Most Indian households have coriander and cumin and the other stuff available anyway; no need to have it in a garam masala mix. I keep commercial garam masala merely as a masala, not as garam masala. Garam masala has a typical flavor that commercial packs or shove-it-all-in recipes lack.