Cooking School - Indian Cuisine

Written by Rosemary Mantini | 19 February 2010

I'm lucky enough to live in a city that overflows with the flavours and aromas of Indian cuisine. Indian cooks love mixing spices like turmeric, cumin, fennel, tamarind, coriander, chili, and so much more, and the result is a huge variety of flavour combinations. No wonder the list of dishes offered on the menus of Indian restaurants is usually so long. Indian chefs have access to an awesome number of authentic recipes with which they can entice diners.

Indian cooking is really easy to replicate at home. Just be sure to have on hand all of the meat, dairy, vegetables and spices called for in the recipe. If you don't, finding what you need is probably easier than you might think. Indian grocery stores and fine supermarkets will often carry containers of pre-mixed spices that cut preparation time in half. The pre-mixed spices are usually labelled under the catch-all term, Garam Masala. Garam meaning hot, and Masala meaning spice. Just like curry, the spices used to make up a batch of Garam Masala will vary considerably according to the taste preferences of the person creating the combination. The one constant is that the spices have all been dry roasted to bring out the most intense flavour.

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