Cooking Tips for Improving Indian Food

Cooking tips for Indian food and my recipe for making your own garam masala.

In my last post, my recipe for tandoori chicken, I mentioned that I learned a lots of cooking tips for Indian food from my time at university in Wolverhampton in the UK. I particular, I learned loads of cooking tips for Indian food from my Indian friends who I lived with in the halls of residence on campus.

Now, for the first time, I am going to share the cooking tips for Indian food that they told me. Not all of them! Just the top few that I always remember whenever I am making Indian food.

HERE ARE MY COOKING TIPS FOR INDIAN FOOD

Nine spices to enhance your Indian dishes:

Keep these spices in stock to add to curries, stews, soups, breads and all matter of drinks to make your food burst with the flavours of India.

  1. Amchoor (dried mango powder)
  2. Black cardamom
  3. Cassia bark
  4. Cayenne
  5. Coriander seeds
  6. Curry leaves
  7. Green cardamom
  8. Fenugreek seeds
  9. Garam masala

How to make garam masala mix:

I always make my own garam masala. I don’t have exact measurements, but this is the order in terms of spice quantity. That is, the spice at the top is the one I use the most of, followed by the second most used spice etc. I grind all the spices to make garam masala in a Nutribullet or coffee grinder.

Coriander seeds
Cumin seeds
Cassia bark (or cinnamon sticks)
Black cardamoms
Green cardamom pods
Cloves
Black peppercorns
Indian bay leaves
Nutmeg

Temper spices to extract their full flavour

Heat one or two tablespoons of ghee, or oil, in a pan and add seeds and then dry spices and fry for a few seconds.

Cook with ghee

Ideally, cook with ghee as it adds a lovely buttery flavour otherwise use sunflower or vegetable oil.

Bump up the flavour

For fuller flavoured dishes, go heavy on the fresh ginger, garlic, and onion. These are the holy trinity of Indian cooking and flavours.

Time saving tip

Grate ginger and garlic into ice-cube trays and freeze them. Then take the cubes out and store in a zip-lock bag in the freezer. When cooking Indian food you can then just add the iced cubes of garlic and ginger to the dish. I also freeze whole cloves of garlic and chillies which can then be grated frozen into dishes. I use a Microplane for all my grating. You can also grate coconut and freeze this too.

You can also freeze coriander leaves, curry leaves, dill and other fresh herbs too.

“Bon Nomnom”

So, what do you think of my cooking tips for Indian recipes? Did you try any of them out? Do you have any cooking tips for Indian recipes? If you do, please let me know in the comments below, I love hearing from you.

If you liked this post, you may also like my baked chicken curry with mango recipe.

Cooking my tandoori chicken recipe is the perfect way to try out the cooking tips learned in this post.

If you like Indian food, you could try making my refreshing mint and cucumber raita recipe.

You might also get a kick out of my spicy Indian tomato salad recipe.

If you like this cooking tips for Indian recipes blog post, please share with others.

2 thoughts on “Cooking Tips for Improving Indian Food”

  1. Thanks for telling me that I should keep a lot of spices in stock in order to recreate the perfect Indian flavour in my dishes. My boyfriend has been interested in Indian cuisine after watching a vlog and I want to surprise him by cooking an authentic dish for him. Still, I really don’t trust my cooking skills, so I’ll book a table in a nearby Indian restaurant just in case I end up burning our kitchen.

    Reply

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