PREPARING SPICES
There are many ways of preparing spices fresh and dried all with the same intension in mind of getting the maximum flavor from them.
DRY FRYING – this is basically placing all your dried ground or even whole spices in a hot pan and allow to fry without any liquid in the pan. As soon as you can smell the spices heating up remove the pan off the heat because they can burn quickly, it’s just to release the flavors in the spice.
FRYING IN OIL – here you gently fry the spices in oil on a gentle heat to release the flavors, normally this is to make spiced oil or for curries to cook the spice so it does not taste raw.
BRUISING OR CRUSHING - some spices have a hard outer shell or skins that need to be bruised or crush before the maximum flavor are released e.g. ginger, cardamom, and lemongrass.
CHOPPING – some spices need to be chopped finely in order for them to attain their maximum flavor and also to be of an edible size so as not to have remove after cooking.
GRATING – many of the root spices need to be grated because of a fibrous texture they have e.g. ginger, horseradish, galangal and nutmeg or mace need to be grated as appose to blitzed up.
GRINDING – as we said in yesterdays blog it is better to buy whole spices because they hold their flavor better for a longer period and then when you want ground spices just grind them and use straight away for the best flavor.
