Curry Recipes Online

Beginners Guide => Just Joined? Introduce Yourself => Topic started by: RedwoodCurry on March 17, 2011, 08:06 PM

Title: Hello
Post by: RedwoodCurry on March 17, 2011, 08:06 PM: Hello all curry lovers. I'm a newbie but love cooking curries and using a lot of chilies. I'm living in Humboldt County California though and it's hard to get all the spices and ingredients needed. So I'm always looking for good sources with decent shipping charges if anybody knows of any.
Thank you for a great website. Cheers
Title: Re: Hello
Post by: Peripatetic Phil on March 17, 2011, 08:14 PM: Quote from: RedwoodCurry on March 17, 2011, 08:06 PM
Hello all curry lovers. I'm a newbie but love cooking curries and using a lot of chilies. I'm living in Humboldt County California though and it's hard to get all the spices and ingredients needed. So I'm always looking for good sources with decent shipping charges if anybody knows of any.
Thank you for a great website. Cheers
Not going to be a great deal of help, I am afraid, RC : the nearest I have been to California while cooking curries is Waterloo in Ontario, and Waterloo has one of the greatest spice shops I know of; where you might find something similar near Humboldt County is probably not going to be easy for most of us to answer, and postal charges from the UK to America are going to be prohibitive (never mind any import requirements (http://www.fda.gov/forindustry/importprogram/default.htm) imposed by the FDA !).

** Phil.
Title: Re: Hello
Post by: Malc. on March 17, 2011, 08:25 PM: Hey Redwood,

I can't help on the spice front i'm afraid, but welcome to the forum.
Title: Re: Hello
Post by: Stephen Lindsay on March 18, 2011, 12:22 PM: Welcome to the forum RedwoodCurry!
Title: Re: Hello
Post by: natterjak on March 18, 2011, 12:37 PM: Hi RedwoodCurry, good to have you onboard. Fraid I can't help with your ingredient-sourcing problems. Surely in a country the size of the US there will be a specialist importer who offers this stuff though?
Title: Re: Hello
Post by: Peripatetic Phil on March 18, 2011, 12:52 PM: How about WholeSpice (http://www.wholespice.com/) ? They are California-based and offer a postal service.
** Phil.
Title: Re: Hello
Post by: RedwoodCurry on March 18, 2011, 07:04 PM: Thank you all for the warm welcome.
Thank you Phil for the link, I found the fenugreek leaves, but still have no source for Cassia bark.
The first base I made came real good without. I guess that's one of the great things about curry, there are so many other flavors going on I don't notice whats missing.
Title: Re: Hello
Post by: Malc. on March 18, 2011, 10:21 PM: Quote from: RedwoodCurry on March 18, 2011, 07:04 PM
but still have no source for Cassia bark.

You can use cinnamon stick in place of Cassia Bark. A More expensive solution but it will have a similar effect.
Title: Re: Hello
Post by: JerryM on March 19, 2011, 10:07 AM: Quote from: Axe on March 18, 2011, 10:21 PM
You can use cinnamon stick in place of Cassia Bark.

this is something i'm still wrestling with. i thought a while ago cassia was king. cinnamon bark is now my clear fav. i have an empty bag of cinnamon sticks (200g) and almost untouched cassia (bought at same time).

i'm currently using cassia in the whole spice but on next batch going to leave it out again and test both batches side by side on some pillau rice (like the chips idea).
Title: Re: Hello
Post by: Malc. on March 19, 2011, 10:40 AM: Hi Jerry,

I'm still using Cassia and will continue to do so, mostly because this is what my beloved IG does. However, I have seriously changed the portion sizing on Cassia.

Where before I would portion in terms of a piece to be 1 inch square I now portion a piece to be at least half of this.
Title: Re: Hello
Post by: JerryM on March 19, 2011, 10:57 AM: Quote from: Axe on March 19, 2011, 10:40 AM
Where before I would portion in terms of a piece to be 1 inch square I now portion a piece to be at least half of this.

Axe,

ditto on this - i have my whole spice as 10g cinnamom to 5g casia and represents ~5% of the total.

it certainly needs to be this kind of ball park to prevent overpowering. i'm normally very keen to get depth and width of spice.

it's just pure gut feeling at this stage as i made several batches before adding in the casia. the funny thing is that i do like the individual taste of casia.

it will be interesting to do a side by side - even wet finger tasting.

it's just one of those things "minor" that's bugging me - yet clear evidence of BIR use. i may just have to reduce the amount more - on my current batch ie 5% it's the 1st taste that i get on a wet finger taste - when i'd like not to.

would put pic up but bandwidth down.
Title: Re: Hello
Post by: Malc. on March 19, 2011, 11:22 AM: When it comes to cassia though, I don't think it is minor. Too much and it can have quite a detrimental effect. In terms of taste and balance, I was very pleased with the Kushi base.

Extracting the right amount of flavour is crucial to the overall balance as you know. One thing that I have learnt recently, is to tear Asian Bay before cooking with it. This was spurred by the comments on Natterjak's recent post on it. I reserached this on the net and found reference to this. It has quite an effect, try it and then smell the leaf.

This brings me back to ways of extracting the right amount of flavour from the Cassia or even cinnamon for that matter. The IG boil the hard spices in water seperately from the base. Not only does it make it easier to extract the hard spice but makes it easier to control the amount of flavour put into the base, as you simply control how much infused water to put in.

Of course they have this down to an art and it would be far better for us to have exacting measurements. The trial and errors continue. :)
Title: Re: Hello
Post by: artistpaul on March 19, 2011, 05:42 PM: Welcome to the forum

paul