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Curry Powder is a very general term for a mix of spices which can be used to make a curry, but even the word curry is extremely general and covers many styles and types of cooking across the whole world. For an Indian style Curry Powder there are two essential ingredients (in my opinion) and these are Cumin and Coriander seeds. Just these two alone as a base on which to make a curry can produce a pretty good result especially if the spices are toasted and freshly ground. I suppose the reason for
curry powder at all is to take away some of the supposed complexity of many of the spices which we use to make a curry and to leave the chef armed with a simpler ingredient. This type of curry powder requires a few more ingredients which are therefore also essential and potentially dozens of optional extras. The absolute minimum for a chef's simple curry powder would therefore be Cumin and Coriander as discussed plus turmeric for mainly colouring and of course chilli powder for heat. This basic Curry Powder can then be augmented with many numbers of spices most usually, dried ginger, black pepper, cloves, mace, green cardamom, black cardamom, bay, cinnamon. Often these latter spices would be made into a Garam massalla Curry Powder and added late in the cooking of the curry to create great aromatics, but a little in the beginning can give the spice foundation and time to permeate fully into the substance of your final curry dish.
Curry Powder like all ground spices rapidly loses aroma and flavour when exposed to the air so should ideally be stored in air tight packages in a cool dark larder. I would not advise keeping curry powders for too long as they do deteriorate quite rapidly. The best advice is to keep whole spices and toast and grind as required as this gives the freshest possible result, however in todays busy world this is not always possible which is why we have started our own Curry powder service where we make your curry powders fresh to order. Click here for more info...
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