Indian Curry || Combination of spices

All of you are winners, you who want to please your family members or guests with your cooking skills, you who love it when everyone praises you for your signature dish, you who know the greatest pleasure is to make others happy, you all are winners.

And for your winning streak of hearts, you must have felt the trick is your perfect combination of spices and the love you added in the preparations, well yes you are right.

However, if you are experiencing inconsistency in the taste of your preparations, and you cant figure it out why? then its time for you to know your spices in detail. 

As they say, "To perform a better practical, understand the theory first" so, lets get started. 

Lets first divide the Masala into parts, and call it the layers,

1. Base

2. Spice

3. Aroma and

4. Secret ingredient

For years I kept on thinking that Tomato, Onion, Ginger and Garlic are the part of the masala used to make Indian curry and I must use it for all my dishes, however, these are not a part of masala, how and where to use them depends on the type of dish we are cooking, for now we will stick to only the spices.

Now the trick is to keep a balance between these four layers, these layers shall complement each other and none of the layer shall dominate the taste, that then will be a perfect blend of masala.

For the simplicity, lets take an example and prepare classic home made mutton curry, usually everyone tastes it likes it very much to my experience. here's a snap for the classic curry I made using the below masala,

 

Base - 

Jeera / Cummin seeds [1tbl spn]- it is earthy in taste, has both sweet and bitterness 

Shah Jeera / Caraway Seeds [1/2 tbl spn] - its mostly same as Jeera but has a slightly strong taste than it

Sesame seeds [1 tbl spn] - Mild sweet, usually used to add rich creaminess to the gravy

grated Coconut [1 tbl spn] - Mild sweet

Spice - 

Badi Elaichi / Black Cardomom [1 piece] - Strong smoky flavor

Laung / Clove [3 pieces] - Warm and spicy

Stone Flower [1/2 tbl spn] - dry more like black cardamom but slightly mild in taste

Chakra phool / Star anise [1 piece] - Sweet in taste

Kalonji / black cumin [1 tbl spn] - bitter in taste but complements Indian curries

Aroma - 

Eliachi / Green cardamom [5 pieces]- strong aromatic 

Tej Patta / bay leaf [2 leaves] 

Dalchini / Cinnamon stick [1 inch]

Javitri / Mace [1 small piece] - slightly bitter at the end, this needs to be roasted properly

Secret ingredient- 

Not necessarily every dish has a secrete ingredient in it, this can be a balancing agent or a flavour you like to eat, in this case I used Rose Petals, 

Rose Petals [10 - 15 petals] - Enhances aroma and blends nicely with mutton, mutton feels to be more tender

[Note: I am not using coriander seeds in this recipe to create base, however, green coriander shall be used and grind with onions, this will give nice black colour to the curry]

Now, each of these spices shall be dry roasted till they releases their essence and then cooled and grinded together, or you may also add all these masalas with Onions while roasting (by this your spices will not burn) and ginger, garlic and coriander leaves together while grinding the masala. 

After making a few changes you can also try the above masala in most of the other Indian curries including the vegetarian curry dishes. After you make it and impress your loved ones with it, let me know in comments below....