Cook a pot of Curry Day 21 August 2011 - Simple Garam Masala Powder

As part of a protest which stems from Singapore, (which you can read about from here ) I have decided to post my favourite recipes featuring Curry spices. Over the next few days,  I'll try to put up different recipes on how to make your own Curry Spice mixes.


So here it goes:

Simple Garam Masala Powder
This spicemix is good for almost all types of meat and vegetable curry dishes.


First get hold of equal portions of the following ingredients:
-green cardamom
-black cardamom
-peppercorns  (whole black pepper or whole black/green/pink/white pepper)
-caraway seeds (which is quite similar to fennel and cumin seeds)

 Simply dry roast all ingredients together and then grind them into powder. After they are cooled, simply store them in air-tight containers till you need the Garam Masala powder.

The way I see this spicemix is that it's one of those multi-purpose ingredient. I use it for almost everything, from marinating meats, to making gravy out of it, to throwing it over my stir-frys. Every family has their own versions, every region has their own versions, and even different brands can taste completely different. 


And to top it all, there's even different spice mixes for different dishes (check out the right sidebar) and sometimes they go by different names as well. Sounds complicated? Nah, its not that complicated actually because there's never any hard and fast rules when it comes to cooking. What is the most important is that you or your love ones get to enjoy your cooking :) 


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I've included some pictures, since these ingredients might be named differently in different countries.

Green and Black Cardamom

Black and White Peppercorn

Black, Green, Pink, White Peppercorn

Caraway seeds (aka Meridian Fennel or Persian Cumin)

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Bento: 2011 First Bento - meat balls and potatoes

01/01/2010
This is the first bento I made for this new year of 201. Ironically the ingredients are all made from leftovers from the potato and carrot stew Mr Bear and I had last night, or should I say "last year". hahaha!

Not that proud of it, cos it looked a little strange. But who cares, I made it for myself, since I couldn't wake up in time thanks to the iphone glitch on 20101 New Year's day. Here's something to pat myself on my back though, it was done in a record time of 10 minutes. Hahahahaha, fastest bento I have ever assembled so far. (and also one of most embarrassingly ugly ones ^..^! )

Rocket Leaves
Potatoes
Carrots
Meat Balls
Grapes
Full-cream yoghurt
nori strips (cut out with a pair of scissors - free hand)

The blue stuff you see on the yogurt is candied sugar (basically sugar laced with food colours, stumbled upon it in a bakery supply store)

Gonna practice more on speed and aesthetics!