Spices and Seasoning

[rousseau]

How to season food has been one of the more challenging things I've picked up since making a hobby of cooking a few years ago. It feels like more of an art, than something with cut and dry guidelines.

The Flavour Bible has been an enormous help for me in understanding pairings, I really can't recommend it enough. I've also picked up on the trial and error aspect of cooking, for every meal or dish you nail there are one or two others that didn't turn out and you learned from.

Also, learning to work with garlic properly (all the ways it can be cooked) has had a huge impact. I've picked up a lot of this from Marcella Hazan's Italian cookbook (the book itself is a little more explanatory than the same recipes online).

And the other experiment I've done to date is making authentic curry and preparing the Garam Masala from scratch. I'm not sure I've ever had a more flavourful, and delicious dish.

Share your tips, tricks, dishes, whatever.

 

[rousseau]

I tried to make an ad-hoc Curry mixture for jarred tomato sauce yesterday. It was mostly a just for fun thing so I wasn't trying too hard to get it right. I went with:

- 2 cloves of garlic
- a hearty amount of cinnamon
- about four or five dashes of Cayenne
- a few dashes of Cumin
- Dried Cilantro
- a teaspoon or so of fish sauce

One of the challenges I find with new experiments is getting the proportions right. In this case the garlic, cinnamon, and cilantro completely took over, and the sauce was a little too sweet with only a little bit of cayenne pulling through to counter-balance it. I'd also need more neutral, earthier spices to give it a peppery flavour. Cinnamon, Cayenne, and Cumin are all pretty strong and juxtaposed.

If I did it again I'd likely need to look at an actual Garam Masala recipe to get the spices right, and nix the Cilantro and some garlic.

 

[steve_bank]

I use the usual stuff.

curry
black pepper
cayenne pepper
garlic
hot sauce
cumin
cilantro