Indian spices???

[WindingRoad]

I would like to try some of the Indian Spices in my cooking but I don't know how? I eat all kinds of meat and veggies. It would be great to know how to use these now that I bought them :rolleyes:

[Owlie]

I would like to try some of the Indian Spices in my cooking but I don't know how? I eat all kinds of meat and veggies. It would be great to know how to use these now that I bought them :rolleyes:

What did you buy? And in what form? I like Madhur Jaffrey's books, if you're interested in getting a cookbook. (Thank you for reminding me that I need to copy some of the more interesting recipes when I go home.)

I do meatballs, a really nice tomato sauce, rice pudding...
Just be careful with turmeric. Stains everything a lovely shade of highlighter yellow.

[OakLeaf]

I cooked Indian for three years straight and never felt confident making masalas without a recipe. It's so alien to the culinary traditions I was raised and learned to cook in. Go for it, but I think you really have to have a handle on the cuisine. In the meantime, I highly recommend Madhur Jaffrey and Neelam Batra.

[Susan]

I like the indian recipes from Manjula on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/Manjulaskitchen

I use mostly Curcuma (to color quinoa, rice, millet... for soups and chicken breast), Cardamom (cooked in soups or with milk for my porridge), Ginger (soups), mustard seeds (let them pop in a hot pan or crush them to get the flavor out). I also use a masala-mix for Currys (it tastes like lebkuchen ;)).

I have fenugreek seeds here, but I never know how to use them. They don't seem to have a taste at all?

[Thorn]

As Oakleaf put it....if you haven't cooked Indian, work from a recipe. One of things I found shocking when I first tried cooking Indian was the amount of spices. Follow the recipes and trust. Here are some other sites. In some ways it is easier to try cooking Indian now as you can watch the process, not just read the recipe.
http://showmethecurry.com/ (Note: we use Penzy's spices and need to cut the coriander powder amounts from here in 1/2)
http://www.curryonwheels.com/pbs2.html

The latter is put out by our local PBS. While some of her recipes can seem rather similar, if you read between the lines, what she does is show you things like "Here, these spices work with vegetables. See how they change when I change out the vegetable?" And she has a lot of dry fry dishes -- lots of flavorful spices without a heavy sauce.