Garam Masala powder

Bill Spohn Once wrote here "If you want to start a thread as long as the chili ones, just ask what should be in garam masala!" So I am going to play my request off that theme.

What dishes would you use Garam Masala powder in? is there any unwritten law about where to use it, or where not to use it. I bought some a day or two ago just because of things I have read here, plus it was CHEAP!

It's great in chocolate.

rwj

One of my favorite uses is in Aloo Ghobi. My first exposure to the recipe was in the "extras" on the DVD of "Bend it like Beckham." There is a very amusing video in which the director uses a cooking show set and makes Aloo Ghobi rather badly, deliberately forcing her mother (an ancient little sari clad Indian lady) to elbow her aside and take over. There are several recipes on the web. Aloo means "potato" and Ghobi is "cauliflower." It is a very tasty vegetarian dish and we make it often.

Many different Indian dishes call for it -- if you have a cookbook which is more sophisticated than the ones that ask you to simply add "curry powder." Garam Masala is usually added to various other single ingredients like Turmeric or black sesame seeds etc. Buy a cookbook by Madhur Jaffrey and you should have plenty of uses for your Garam Masala.

Robert had a contest using Garam Masala in unusual contexts several months ago. You could probably do a search and dig that up.

Frank

I always believed garam masala was a mixed spice blend - it varies from place to place - and it's only added in the last few minutes of cooking. I think it's the Indian version of "mixed spice" and it's generally used for savoury dishes.

I was watching a programme on Egyptian cooking recently, and I noticed they were at my Lebanese wholesaler, purchasing an arabic spice blend called baharat. So I rocked up the following week to the store, and stood behind the counter and asked the serving lady for 200g of "baharat". She looked at me and said, "what?". "Baharat - I saw it on Food Safari last week?". She laughed, and said "Oh, you mean mixed spice, darleeeng, hahaha...". And it certainly wasn't mixed spice as I knew it (I used "mixed spice" in my fruit loaves) - it was an exotic blend of white and black peppercorns, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and pimento. But to them, it was simply the house blend, and something they use in almost every dish!

Bob, LOL Bill Spohn is right, there are as many variations of what goes into garam masala as there are people making them up.
Nope, no law exists as far as I know, but garam is usually part of almost any Indian savory dish.
Re what you bought, it's probably fine but you never know how long it's sat around and so could be stale, which is why I like to make a little fresh when required.
Madhur Jaffrey is a very good recommendation for recs BTW, they work.

Celia's right - varies from place to place, and the usage also varies depending on the style of cuisine. But the standard storebought garam masalas are very versatile and work in most North Indian dishes - kormas, marinades for a lot of paneer/chicken tikkas/kebabs, jalfrezis and plenty of other mixed vegetable items.

there are as many variations of what goes into garam masala as there are people making them up.

More. Anyone who makes GM will have several versions suitable for different sorts of dishes.

If my memory serves me correctly Garam Masala is more of a Northern Indian spice blend while Goda Masala is more of a Southern Indian spice blend.

rwj

Bob,

About a year ago I took a cooking class from Chef Yaj Upadhyaya. If you recall, he is the chef/proprietor of Cumin, the site of one of our Cincinnati offlines. In class, he handed out a glossary which included the following about garam masala:

A blend of several strongly aromatic spices designed to add flavor and fragrance to many Indian dishes. Its also often used as a garnish. The literal Hindi translation of "garam masala" is "hot spices."


So it would seem there is no definitive ingredient list for garam masala.

Of the recipes presented in the class, only baigan bhurta used garam masala. Yaj described this dish as an Indian version of baba ghanoush. The basic procedure was to roast eggplant and mash the flesh. Saute onion with spices including serrano peppers, cumin, garlic and ginger. Add the mashed eggplant along with diced tomatoes, green peas, turmeric, and garam masala. Garnish with cilantro.

Bob,
About a year ago I took a cooking class from Chef Yaj Upadhyaya. If you recall, he is the chef/proprietor of Cumin, the site of one of our Cincinnati offlines. In class, he handed out a glossary which included the following about garam masala:

A blend of several strongly aromatic spices designed to add flavor and fragrance to many Indian dishes. Its also often used as a garnish. The literal Hindi translation of "garam masala" is "hot spices." So it would seem there is no definitive ingredient list for garam masala.

Thanks Mike. Yes I do remember the offline at Cumin, and I do believe it would be nice to do another sometime. Looking at the ingredients list there must be 10 or more ingredients. I'll post them when I get a chance.

One of my favorite uses is in Aloo Ghobi. My first exposure to the recipe was in the "extras" on the DVD of "Bend it like Beckham." There is a very amusing video in which the director uses a cooking show set and makes Aloo Ghobi rather badly, deliberately forcing her mother (an ancient little sari clad Indian lady) to elbow her aside and take over. There are several recipes on the web. Aloo means "potato" and Ghobi is "cauliflower." It is a very tasty vegetarian dish and we make it often.

Many different Indian dishes call for it -- if you have a cookbook which is more sophisticated than the ones that ask you to simply add "curry powder." Garam Masala is usually added to various other single ingredients like Turmeric or black sesame seeds etc. Buy a cookbook by Madhur Jaffrey and you should have plenty of uses for your Garam Masala.

Robert had a contest using Garam Masala in unusual contexts several months ago. You could probably do a search and dig that up.

Frank

Will you share your recipe foe Aloo Ghobi? I have tried one...it was not as good as I remember eating in our local Indian restaurant.

Hi Karen

I use pieces of various recipes. This is the main one I have used. You could probably DOUBLE the spices and come off pretty OK. Some recipes call for precooking and/or browning the potatoes and adding them in at the end. See PS.

RCP: ALOO GHOBI (Curried Cauliflower and Potatoes)
Serves 4.

1 medium head cauliflower, broken into florets (1.5 lb)
4 medium ordinary potatoes, diced into 3/4" cubes (1 lb)
1 medium onion, halved and sliced thin
1 14oz can of diced tomatos, drained

1/2" ginger root, minced
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp ground chili

2 tsp Kosher salt, or 1 tsp table salt
1 tsp sugar

1 tsp black mustard seeds

4 tbsp vegetable oil or Ghee

Heat oil in a large heavy-bottomed pot with a lid. When oil is very
hot, add mustard seed and turmeric and cook for 30 seconds. Add onion
and ginger and cook until onions start to become soft, about 2
minutes. Add remaining spices and cook until oil becomes darker
orange and spices become aromatic, about 1 minute. Add sugar and
salt, then potatoes and cauliflower and cook, stirring, about 4
minutes. Add tomatos, mix, cover and cook on medium-low heat for
20 minutes or until cauliflower and potatoes are tender. If the pan
becomes dry, add a few tbsp of water.

NOTE -- if I am not serving this to vegetarians, I put in a cup or 2 of chicken broth.

PS a recipe in which the potatoes are cooked separately:

http://www.beyondwonderful.com/recipes/sidedishes/vegetables/aloo_ghobi.htm

Edited by Jenise to add 'RCP' for archival purposes.

You might be interested in "660 Curries" by James Beard finalist Raghavan Iyer. Rather exhaustive, to say the least, and has a number of garam masala powder recipes. (Workman Publishing, 2008)

I've been considering buying Madhur Jaffrey's Ultimate Curry Bible - can anyone comment on it?

Garam Masala can range from mild and interesting to quite spicy, depending on who made it.

My old buddy Aziz Rajabali used to make this quick and easy GM - equal parts of ground cardamom, ground cinnamon, ground cloves, whole cumin, and of peppercorns, all ground, of course. If you have the ingredients you can grind them to order when you need it rather than having it going stale in a bottle - the basic ingredients keep much better in whole form than ground.

One of those small coffee grinders works beautifully for this - but do not use the same one you use for coffee( and do NOT ask me how I know this.....).

My usual mix, BTW, also includes some nutmeg. But then I like adding nutmeg to a lot of things - omellettes, coffee.....

You might be interested in "660 Curries" by James Beard finalist Raghavan Iyer. Rather exhaustive, to say the least, and has a number of garam masala powder recipes. (Workman Publishing, 2008)

That is one of the best books in my collection. I got to work with him when he was touring that book; great man with a super personality. The best curry we had that night was a spicy pineapple curry served over vanilla ice cream.

rwj

Robert had a contest using Garam Masala in unusual contexts several months ago. You could probably do a search and dig that up.
Frank

That was actually Goda Masala. I believe it was called "The Great Goda Masala Challenge."

rwj

Coincidentally, I somewhat unintentionally made Channa Masala from a Madhur Jaffrey recipe last night, part of which required making a garam masala. As others have said, there is no one recipe for it. Madhur Jaffrey's called for cardamom, cinnamon, cumin, black pepper and nutmeg. Finding myself without any cardamom, I substituted some allspice. The basic idea is a very aromatic mixture of spices. It should also be noted that this was used in conjunction with ground coriander, cumin, cayenne, paprika, turmeric, roasted cumin and fresh ginger.

Mark Lipton

Hope it turned out well Mark. Channa masala's one of my favourite dishes since childhood, especially when it's served with bhatura. (And darn, after that post I'm now feeling the urge to try my hand at channa bhatura )

Hope it turned out well Mark. Channa masala's one of my favourite dishes since childhood, especially when it's served with bhatura. (And darn, after that post I'm now feeling the urge to try my hand at channa bhatura )

Channa masala is also a perennial favorite of mine, Salil. I've never made bhatura, but the next time I cook channa I'll give it a shot. The funny thing is that we've got a couple of very credible Indian restaurants in town, one of which makes an excellent channa masala (to my taste), so I rarely cook it myself. Still, it was fun to see the transformation of the ingredients into the dark brown sauce.

Mark Lipton

Coincidentally, the Food & Wine that arrived today contains an article on Indian cuisine. It has the following info:

Garam Masala translates as "warm spice." The blend varies but generally includes sweet spices like cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg and mace, along with earthy cumin and citrusy coriander. It's easy to make at home, but store-bought versions are convenient and delicious.

To answer one of Bob's original questions, recipes appearing in the mag that use garam masala were Lemony, Spiced, Tandoor Quail and Butter-Basted Chicken Skewers.

You might be interested in "660 Curries" by James Beard finalist Raghavan Iyer. Rather exhaustive, to say the least, and has a number of garam masala powder recipes. (Workman Publishing, 2008)

That is one of the best books in my collection. I got to work with him when he was touring that book; great man with a super personality. The best curry we had that night was a spicy pineapple curry served over vanilla ice cream.

rwj

That's good to know. All this talk about curries prompted me to try something out of Iyer's book. So last night I made curried chicken breast, shrimp with garam masala, basmati rice and broccoli. Definitely good, but I noticed something like a 50:1 ratio of prep compared to eating. (Even #1 wife, who is not a huge fan of Indian cooking, gave a thumbs up.)

Garam masala is like barbecue spice rub in that there seem to be as many recipes for it as there are cooks using it. The Thousand Recipe Indian Cookbook, one of my favorites, gives about a half dozen regional variations on it. They vary from a simple mix of four or five spices up to the Kashmiri and Moghul variants, which have over a dozen spices each.

The one constant is that the spices are first lightly roasted to release the aromatic oils and then ground to a powder.

Garam masala can be both a primary ingredient in the spice mix (masala) for an Indian dish and a garnish sprinkled on the finished dish at the end.

I'll post a bunch of garam masala recipes when I get home where my cookbooks are.

-Paul W.

I think Jenise posted a recipe for lamb Rogan Josh awhile ago (or maybe said that she was hot for Josh Grogan, I don't recall) but finishing that with garam masala works well and all this talk is getting me hungry for some - I think I may go shopping for shanks! Unlike oxtails, which I keep in the freezer for a rainy day, I tend not to stockpile shanks. I probably should!

While I was back in the states for the holidays visiting relatives and friends, one of my friends cooked a boneless pork roast in a dutch oven covered with pinapples on a bed of sliced yellow onions. When it was done she set it out to rest and sprinkled garam masala over the roast. She used a mix that she got from an Indian food store. These friends buy most of their spices from nearby Indian food stores or from Penzies.