Popular spices and herbs used for cooking

A spice is a flavoring for foods. Spices are made by drying some part of a plant and grinding it to a powder. The most popular spice is pepper. The only other spice that is widely used in the United States is mustard. The most popular spices and herbs used for cooking are paprika, allspice, chili, pepper, cloves, nutmegs, cinnamon and a blend of curry powder. In all, there are hundreds of different spices. It is important to stock such spices in the kitchen, for the preparation of vegetable, chicken or beef curries. Spices can easily be purchased at Indian spice stores, in some of which, recipes for preparing certain curries are also available.

Most of the spices are imported from India, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. There are restaurants where spicy foods are served, but if one prefers home cooking, knowing how to use spices in proper quantities are essential. One of the most important ingredients that is used as a seasoning is curry powder. It is a blend of many spices, such as onion, garlic, ginger, chili, cumin seed, tumeric, fenugreek, cardamon, cloves and pepper. The ingredients are mashed up together and then dried. The color of the finished product is reddish, but it later changes to a golden yellow. When food is cooked with curry powder, it has a rich, golden color.

The first people to use curry powder were the Chinese, but today, we think of curry powder as an Indian seasoning. In Indonesia it is so important, that the word, “curry”, almost means “dinner.” Fish, meat, chicken and vegetables are cooked with curry powder and served with rice. In cooking, just the correct amount should be used, or the food may be too hot because of the pepper and ginger that are parts of the ingredient used in blending the curry powder.

Spices are readily available at Indian spice stores where some of these are rare and exotic.

The spices are reasonably priced and storekeepers are always disposed to helping customers buy the basic variety of such ingredients to take home.

Garlic and onions are also important for any kind of food, specially in curry. Another important spice that is necessary to use in curried food is paprika. It is a tasty, bright-red spice that comes from the seeds and fruit of a plant of the pepper family. The plant grows in many parts of Europe where the climate is not too cold. Hungarian paprika is one of the best known of these plants. The fruits are long and pointed. The seeds and skin of the fruit are ground into a powder, which is the spice.