Topic: CA's Garam Masala (Illustrated!)

[adriandavidb]

Many thanks for posting your Garam Masalla, I use the Dhillon one in my version of Bhuna and Jalfrezi, and it works well (incidently my 'finished dish' curry's differ markedly from Dhillon's, If find her base recipe very good but her  finished dishes a little bland!

My base is the same as Dhillon's, save it contains home made chicken stock, and from time to time I've tried adding carrot (not a fan, the finished base would, with the addition of some chopped Corriander leaf, made a superb carrot & corriander soup!) and green pepper (one or two medium carrots and one pepper to every 9 or so large omions).  I include black peeper corns, bay, star anise and cloves in this stock; and suble amounts of these spices (hardly noticable in their own right) seem to 'lift' the over all flavours of the dishes eventually made from the base.

So, I was very interested to read your recipe for garam masalla, which contains star anise, as I fully appreciate just how well small amounts of this flavour compliment a curry.  Interestingly, some of the best BIR currys I've ever had contain 'just detectable' levels of anise.

Many thanks can't wait to try out your version!