I just found a place in Tainan that sells a couple of powdered Indian spices, but I’m heading up to Taipei on Monday and was going to stop at Trinity and buy some whole ones. BUT the powdered ones down here are half the price.
Is there a great difference in taste? My first attempt at home-made curry paste produced something terribly bland (that’ll teach me for using store-bought curry powder!), and I want something tasty and authentic. I don’t mind getting out the mortar and pestle, I’m just interested in saving a few bucks if I can.
[quote=“tsukinodeynatsu”]I just found a place in Tainan that sells a couple of powdered Indian spices, but I’m heading up to Taipei on Monday and was going to stop at Trinity and buy some whole ones. BUT the powdered ones down here are half the price.
Is there a great difference in taste? My first attempt at home-made curry paste produced something terribly bland (that’ll teach me for using store-bought curry powder!), and I want something tasty and authentic. I don’t mind getting out the mortar and pestle, I’m just interested in saving a few bucks if I can.[/quote]
I’d go with whole. Indian curry paste, eh? Or powder?
[quote=“Tempo Gain”][quote=“tsukinodeynatsu”]I just found a place in Tainan that sells a couple of powdered Indian spices, but I’m heading up to Taipei on Monday and was going to stop at Trinity and buy some whole ones. BUT the powdered ones down here are half the price.
Is there a great difference in taste? My first attempt at home-made curry paste produced something terribly bland (that’ll teach me for using store-bought curry powder!), and I want something tasty and authentic. I don’t mind getting out the mortar and pestle, I’m just interested in saving a few bucks if I can.[/quote]
I’d go with whole. Indian curry paste, eh? Or powder?[/quote]
One idea is to find a good masala recipe online. Make a big batch, and then cook your meat / veggies or whatnot with some onions and spoon in masala until it is as spicy as you like. The leftover masala should keep in the fridge for a few days, or you can even freeze it.
Curry is really full of spice. I mean, some of my sauces are about 40% spice by mass! I’d say start with 20% and then go up from there. Oh, and using the Thai Royal jasmine rice is great with the Indian curries.
As Dragonbones said, it’s just like coffee beans. Freshly-ground newer spices are going to taste better than really old whole spices, but for storage, whole spices are usually a better idea - they’re going to keep longer.
Note as well that whole spices can have different uses than ground ones. For example, cumin powder is common in curries and Mexican dishes, but cumin seeds can be fried (until “popping”) for vegetable dishes, or as a finishing touch to daal, and in such recipes you can’t use cumin powder as a substitute.
Think about black pepper. Now that pepper is commonly available for sale in its own little grinders, I find pre-ground black pepper almost without taste.
Many people have two coffee grinders: one for coffee, and one for spices. If you’ve got whole spices + coffee grinder, then you can have ground spices whenever you want. Or as you say, a mortar and pestle does the same job, but my technique for that seems off: I wind up with spice pieces flying all over the kitchen.