Get Your Spice On!

Welcome to the World of Spices!
Enter.  *Sniff*  Ahhh....

Good morning, and welcome to the second post for The Indian Diaries!  This weekend my roommate Nikita gave me a tutorial of her spice box, so I'm sharing what I learned.
"The secrets of Indian cooking begin and end in the spice box."  Nikita explains, "Indian food owes its flavors to spices.  In an Indian household it is common to find a spice box which holds anywhere from 5-10 main spices that form the backbone of most dishes.  My spice box contains salt, red chili powder, turmeric powder, coriander powder, whole cumin seeds, dry mango powder, and garam masala.  Although these spices go in the majority of my Indian dishes, other important spices include green cardamom, black cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, star anise, black salt, fenugreek, safron, poppy seeds, mustard seeds, mint, fennel seeds, seseme seeds, and bay leaves."  The list goes on.



"Most spices have an herbal and medicinal use in Indian culture.  For example, turmeric is used as an antiseptic or antibacterial to treat cuts and wounds.  It is used in many skin creams and cosmetics.  However spices for medicinal use may be greatly exploited in practices like ayurveda and household remedies."
Nikita's Beauty Tip: Mix yogurt with gram flour and turmeric and apply to skin.  Leave on for 10-15 minutes and wash for a quick cleanser and fresh glow!
Hope you found this interesting!
With love,
The spice girls.
(aka Nikita and Rachel)

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this post! I'm trying to cook more for myself but I'm pretty clueless when it comes to spices. I'm going to bookmark this :)

Lia Chen said...

Awesome post on the spices. I'm not good in cooking, this post is really helping me a lot :)

Meredith (Pursuing Balance) said...

This is a very interesting post! Thank you for sharing. I love the beauty tip at the end!

Gina; The Candid RD said...

Great post!! I'm always interested in learning new things about spices.

Thanks for stopping by my blog!

eatingRD said...

I love trying new spices to really add that sumthin' sumthin' to a dish! Great post! I'm a big fan of garam masala mmm I also experimented with sumac, have you tried that? It's kind of lemony and tastes very bright. Thanks for stopping by my blog, and I'm glad I found yours!!

Emily said...

So fun to read about different spices. I have an Indian friend, and she always made the BEST authentic food for us. The spices she used were always critical to the taste of the dish.

hapa bento said...

Thank you! I love Indian food, but I struggle to cook it myself so I'm so happy to of found you!

sukhpreet said...

your aloo gobi looks way better than mine....and i love nikita's beauty tip, my grandma told me about it a few year ago.

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Disclaimer. I am not a Registered Dietitian yet. I provide nutrition information intended for the general public, not for the treatment of a specific medical condition. I try to use scientific research and reliable sources when forming my opinions and messages.
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