imparting a tangy, lemony flavour.
TURMERIC
A bright yellow spice that comes from a dried root. It gives curry powder its hallmark colour and has an earthy, mustardy flavour.
HOW TO USE SPICES
Toasting spices before cooking with them releases their oils and aromas, making them much more fragrant and easier to grind. Place them in a dry pan over a medium heat and shake the pan until the spices give off a warm, nutty aroma – about a minute. Take them off the heat and allow them to cool before crushing them with a pestle and mortar.
Alternatively, if the recipe calls for leaving the spices whole, you can fry them gently in oil. The oil will then take on all the spices’ flavours and pass them on to anything else that is now added to the pan, such as chopped onions or tomatoes. Be careful, though, as spices can quickly burn, so you need to keep stirring them. Add more oil or a little water if they start to catch.
CHILLIES
As with most ingredients, we are really spoilt with the range of chillies we can buy now. Not so long ago, you’d be lucky to find a choice between red and green. Nowadays most supermarkets stock a choice of varieties and there are lots of chilli farms that will do mail order. (Who’d have thought England would turn out to be such a good place to grow a tropical plant?) The best chillies deliver a wonderful fruitiness alongside a liberal dose of heat.
Which chillies you use in your cooking depends on how spicy you like your food. The heat comes from an alkaloid called capsaicin and is measured in units known as Scovilles. The bird’s eye chilli – the small red one used in a lot of Thai cooking – measures 225,000 Scovilles, while the Scotch bonnet, which I use in Jerk Chicken ( see here ) comes in at 350,000. If that all sounds too much, the green jalapeño is just 5,000, although the heat does develop the longer it cooks. When smoked and dried, the jalapeño becomes the chipotle. Sold dried, or in a sweet adobo sauce, it adds a rich spiciness to braised meats and sauces.
If you want to reduce the heat of a chilli, remove the seeds before cooking as these are the fieriest part. To do this, hold the chilli between the palms of your hands and rub them together backwards and forwards. This will break the membrane holding the seeds. Now cut the top off and shake the chilli to release all the seeds. To chop chillies finely, see here .
CURRY-SPICED
SWEETCORN SOUP
SERVES 4
One of the first things I learnt on my travels to India was that there is no such thing as curry powder. Every household would have its own favourite blend of spices, with subtle distinctions. Below is my version of a spicy Madras mix, which takes a simple sweetcorn soup into another league. Dry-frying and grinding up the spices fresh and to order make a world of difference to recipes.
Olive oil, for frying
1 onion, peeled and finely diced
1 large potato, peeled and cubed
1 litre vegetable or chicken stock
1 × 420g tin creamed corn
2 × 200g tins sweetcorn
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
FOR THE MADRAS CURRY PASTE
1 tbsp coriander seeds
1 tbsp cumin seeds
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp ground turmeric
2 tsp peeled and chopped fresh root ginger
½ tsp salt
Olive oil
1 . First make the curry paste. Toast the coriander and cumin seeds in a dry, medium-hot frying pan for about 1 minute until aromatic. Grind in a mortar to a fine powder, then add the garlic and grind to form a smooth paste. Add the chilli powder, turmeric, ginger and salt and mix well. Loosen by adding a little oil.
2 . To make the soup, heat a large oiled saucepan over a medium heat. Sweat the onion for 5 minutes until soft but not coloured. Add the curry paste and cook with the onion for about 2 minutes until aromatic. Add the potato and stir around in the curry paste. Pour in the stock, season and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer gently for about 7 minutes until the potato is soft and cooked
TURMERIC
A bright yellow spice that comes from a dried root. It gives curry powder its hallmark colour and has an earthy, mustardy flavour.
HOW TO USE SPICES
Toasting spices before cooking with them releases their oils and aromas, making them much more fragrant and easier to grind. Place them in a dry pan over a medium heat and shake the pan until the spices give off a warm, nutty aroma – about a minute. Take them off the heat and allow them to cool before crushing them with a pestle and mortar.
Alternatively, if the recipe calls for leaving the spices whole, you can fry them gently in oil. The oil will then take on all the spices’ flavours and pass them on to anything else that is now added to the pan, such as chopped onions or tomatoes. Be careful, though, as spices can quickly burn, so you need to keep stirring them. Add more oil or a little water if they start to catch.
CHILLIES
As with most ingredients, we are really spoilt with the range of chillies we can buy now. Not so long ago, you’d be lucky to find a choice between red and green. Nowadays most supermarkets stock a choice of varieties and there are lots of chilli farms that will do mail order. (Who’d have thought England would turn out to be such a good place to grow a tropical plant?) The best chillies deliver a wonderful fruitiness alongside a liberal dose of heat.
Which chillies you use in your cooking depends on how spicy you like your food. The heat comes from an alkaloid called capsaicin and is measured in units known as Scovilles. The bird’s eye chilli – the small red one used in a lot of Thai cooking – measures 225,000 Scovilles, while the Scotch bonnet, which I use in Jerk Chicken ( see here ) comes in at 350,000. If that all sounds too much, the green jalapeño is just 5,000, although the heat does develop the longer it cooks. When smoked and dried, the jalapeño becomes the chipotle. Sold dried, or in a sweet adobo sauce, it adds a rich spiciness to braised meats and sauces.
If you want to reduce the heat of a chilli, remove the seeds before cooking as these are the fieriest part. To do this, hold the chilli between the palms of your hands and rub them together backwards and forwards. This will break the membrane holding the seeds. Now cut the top off and shake the chilli to release all the seeds. To chop chillies finely, see here .
CURRY-SPICED
SWEETCORN SOUP
SERVES 4
One of the first things I learnt on my travels to India was that there is no such thing as curry powder. Every household would have its own favourite blend of spices, with subtle distinctions. Below is my version of a spicy Madras mix, which takes a simple sweetcorn soup into another league. Dry-frying and grinding up the spices fresh and to order make a world of difference to recipes.
Olive oil, for frying
1 onion, peeled and finely diced
1 large potato, peeled and cubed
1 litre vegetable or chicken stock
1 × 420g tin creamed corn
2 × 200g tins sweetcorn
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
FOR THE MADRAS CURRY PASTE
1 tbsp coriander seeds
1 tbsp cumin seeds
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp ground turmeric
2 tsp peeled and chopped fresh root ginger
½ tsp salt
Olive oil
1 . First make the curry paste. Toast the coriander and cumin seeds in a dry, medium-hot frying pan for about 1 minute until aromatic. Grind in a mortar to a fine powder, then add the garlic and grind to form a smooth paste. Add the chilli powder, turmeric, ginger and salt and mix well. Loosen by adding a little oil.
2 . To make the soup, heat a large oiled saucepan over a medium heat. Sweat the onion for 5 minutes until soft but not coloured. Add the curry paste and cook with the onion for about 2 minutes until aromatic. Add the potato and stir around in the curry paste. Pour in the stock, season and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer gently for about 7 minutes until the potato is soft and cooked
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