The Magical Mix - Garam Masala

Coming from a Punjabi house, cooking without the Garam masala is unimaginable. As a child, I remember my mother just graciously sprinkle this mix and suddenly the whole house would have the aroma that would immediately stimulate the salivary glands. But I had not understood the whole importance of this Secret Ingrediant of the north
Indian kitchen till I started cooking myself. " Just sprinkle some garam masala" my mum in law would say, as she would casually taste my bland vegetable curry, and wola, by the time it came to the table, it would have both aroma and flavour.

As a keen food observer, I had noticed that the same vegetable made in the same manner  tastes diffferently when made in two different house holds only because of the difference in the Garam Masala added. Most houses have their own grandmothers recipes that is a blend of the right variety of a number of spices. The name comes from its meaning HOT SPICE funny enough because its not hot like a pepper. The same mix of spices when added as it is, that is by not grinding is called Khada masala. Many of the makers of the authentic Lucknowy biryani prefer adding the khada masala.

So as the proportions of added cumin seeds, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon , fenugreek seeds, black pepper corns varies, I am going to try to make a little variations of these spices to come to a conclusion of my own. I shall also try to see what is the difference between manually grounded and machine mixed spices.

so lets see how it goes.

The start of the "Recipe"

With my newly developed interest in cooking, I decided to go ahead with my blog on culinary literature. Being an Indian and coming from a house where my mother makes the most awesome food ever, this development of interest is not a shocker to me. Even as a kid, I loved well cooked food and with age my interest in food just seems to increase. Culinary Literature is my little attempt to cultivate my this interest and use it to make a sumptuous concoction of information on the food we eat.

Reading about food and learning recipes both new and old is first on the agenda.  India is truly the land of people with eager palates. The same vegetable or pulse is made in different ways in the different parts of our culturally rich country. Infact, the cooking styles have changed over the years and is different in urban and rural India. With all these varied factors as ingredients, I intend to form " Recipe" of the Culinary Literature.

Getting completely inspired from the movie " Julie and Julia " , I intend to write about one ingredient - in no particular order, gather all information about it as much as I can and then try out some unique recipe using it. ill also try to rate the recipe . lets see how all that goes.

 So here goes - The start of my Recipe of the Culinary Literature :-)