Recipes
Spices
Although I do like grinding my own spices, I keep a supply of commercially available ground spices on hand. Many of these come from Robertsons Spices, a well known brand here in South Africa. My local Spar has a wide variety of their herbs and spices. They also have smaller selections of spices from Simpli Spice and Mr Spices.
A selection of my spices
Robertsons Spices have colour-coded caps - the orange caps signify spices (green for herbs and red for peppers). In the pic above, the two smaller bags are from Simpli Spice (cumin seed and crushed chilli) and the two larger ones from Mr Spices (coarse ground coriander and chilli powder). Cardamom pods are not so easy to get. The last packet I got were from Woolies. The container shown is an old one that I have reused many times. I prefer using the cardamom seeds, rather than the pods, in recipes requiring cardamom.
My mortar and pestle is also included in the pic above. This is not as deep as I would have liked, but the price suited me. Woolies had one that I really liked but was way over my budget. My previous mortar and pestle was far too shallow and now serves as an ornament.
I prefer making my own curries, but sometimes it's just quicker to use an off-the-shelf blend. A mixture that I really like is the Rajah Mild and Spicy Curry blend - it's not really a curry, but has a wonderful flavour profile. I often use this as a spice blend in stews and potjies. When I want to use it in a curry, I add extra chilli to give it the missing bite.
Some curries call for the addition of Garam Masala. I haven't gotten around to mixing my own blend yet, so use what I can find in the supermarkets. The one I use most often is made by Osman's Taj Mahal and is called Extra Spicy Garam Masala. This can be found in many Checkers supermarkets. I have used a blend from Woolies, but that was not quite as nice as the Osman's blend.
One really underrated spice for stews and potjies is whole pimento. It goes well with any red meat stew. Unfortunately, this is also one of those spices that is not easy to find.
I use ground ginger together with coarse ground coriander in just about every dish I make that entails frying onions. I really enjoy the little extra flavour these add to dish, especially as I really dislike the taste of garlic.
(8 August 2023)
