hi Mamta and everyone

I sometimes make my quick curry by starting to add say mustard seeds and nigella seeds and some cardamon seeds to some oil add an onion and carry on with the curry.

With these whole spices I don't dry-fry and crush because I'm doing something quick.

And I'm happy to use whole spices like this.

I'm still getting flavour right?

Azelia, I seldom dry fry my whole spices. In my mother's house, and any that I have seen in northern India, this is not the prcatice. We all do exactly what you do, add whole spices to oil first, then add onions etc. and then carry on from there. Adding whole spices to hot oil releases their flavour. I don't even dry roast spices for making garam masala, neither did my mother and anyone else I grew up with. The reasoning for Garam masala is that if you dry roast and then grind them, that certainly release flavours, but when you store it in a jar for use, say over a month, released flavours are lost. So, I use 'raw' Garam Masala.

Thanks so much Mamta...interesting to read your personal experience and your families of how they use the spices.

Interesting that here in the UK there seems to be an obsession with dry frying spices all the time on tv...

...this is why I love to watch tv shows where they show home cooks cooking what they do for their family....like the Australian Safari program love that show even if the recipes of the home cooks may not be the "authentic" version it's what they love to cook.

I'm sure Mamta that like my culture there is often arguments anyway about the "right" of doing something between families or villages or parts of the country.

In Portugal we except that in our national dishes there will be variations therefore there's no absolute. Most people were very poor until recently and cooked from what they had available and what they were taught by their mother or aunts, there were no cookery books! And even if you could get hold of them a lot of the village folk couldn't read like my gran.

frying seeds is common in Bengal, where they seem to start every dish with frying panch poran (five spice). Mustard seed and nigella seeds (incorrectly called onion seeds) are two of the common ones found in that spice mix, the others being fennel, methi and cumin. In the mix found in Bengal, the mustard seed is not used (as the oil is usually mustard oil) but a rare spice called radhuni, which is a kind of wild celery. I have substituted normal celery seed for radhuni, (which I have as well) and it seems to add another dimension.

The common ploy of TV chefs is a fad, and shows they don't understand what they are doing (not to say they can't cook, just that they don't understand why they are doing something). Roasting (well, dry heating, really) some spices can be beneficial, as it produces other flavours not formed from low heat water based cooking. They can impart a nutty/roast flavour. The spices are coriander seed, cumin seed and methi seeds. The seeds will darken on heating (and in the curry gravy) due to the Maillard reaction between the carbs and protein in the seeds. In fact it is this reaction which turns the seeds dark on storage, and is a big problem in all sorts of food storage, including milk powder. Of course, we make use of this reaction to give us the roasted flavours in meat and veg when suitably heated.

The reason not to heat other spices is that their volatile essential oils will be lost to the kitchen environment, they will not change, so in the end, flavour is lost, not enhanced, as Mamta rightly says and does. I blame TV chefs for much of the folly that pervades these programmes, a real example of the metaphorically blind leading the blind. Another rant over, one of those weeks, init ;?)

as Mamta rightly says and does.

But Mamta doesn?t know the scientific reasons behind it, she just does it from a 'feeling' and from following the old Indian traditions ;-)!

Thanks for that explanation Lapis.

Mamta

So...Lapis if I understand it right, you're saying coriander, cumin & methi seeds benefit from dry heat a little if that's what you wish but other spices in that sort of treatment actually worsen using that method because their essential oils are lost in process?

Now I'm thinking if these spices that don't benefit from dry heat and in fact destroying their essential oil in that process then I assume by the time you add them to your curry they don't have a lot to give....they've given their "all" in the dry heat and instead of adding their essential oils/flavour to the curry - they're half dead in a way?

hmmmm...she says stroking her goatie beard.....

I wish their was a Harold McGee type of book on spices...it would be so interesting....hey Lapis...and there's an opportunity here, what do you say? I would be the first on the list to buy the book. :-)

hey, Mamta, sometimes the old ways are the best ways, I'm not saying they always are, but definitely in this case. I'm afraid we suffer in this country from TVchefitis, who's mouths seem bigger than their bellies. You've got to laugh, or you'd cry!! Every other minute out trips another falsehood, learnt from the previous tvchef, without a moments thought.

azelia's...

you have understood perfectly. The art of spicing is not only what to add, but when to add it, so that the final product has the correct balance of flavours. When dishes are being cooked, flavours are being made, and lost, mostly in the latter case, by boiling away without a lid. If your kitchen is full of wonderful aromas, they aren't in the dish any more!! So, in good recipes (developed and used for many years, the correct amount of spices are used, so to compensate for the losses. Mamta may say she doesn't account for losses, but her experience does it for her! Both she and I prefer less spicing, and I think one reason is that we can get the most from them.

A book would be nice, but unrealistic, I think. I did try to contact McGee, but got no reply. And I'm only too willing to help, if I can, here. Although I have thought about giving lectures to catering college students, may follow that one up, one day.

As a tempter, remember a kids sweet called a 'pear drop'. If you ever get the chance to buy some, do, and do this trick. Put some crushed ones in a jar with some cloves, and leave the lid on for a few minutes. Then quickly remove the lid, and put it under the nose of someone with their eyes closed. What will they say is in the jar???

I shall have to try it out on my teenagers...

I contacted McGee with the same result as you but then he will be having thousands of emails/letters so there's only so much one person can deal with.

you should really think about a book maybe not as in print but why not ebook type. You're spending so much time writing stuff here why not cut & paste it on to a blog format, and keep on adding it as you go along that way it's not like sitting down for hours to write a book.

seriously think about it...at least when people repeat questions you can direct them to info you already have and you can edit/add/delete as you go along.

I decided some time ago it was no good me acquire knowledge without sharing it...bit like being very rich but you're by yourself on a deserted island.