Making your own spices mixes is easy, and takes about five minutes! If you're making Indian or Middle Eastern recipes, this is a useful skill to learn.
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What Is Madras Curry Powder?
While it is a curry powder, Madras curry isn't a traditional Indian blend. When the British colonized India they found a lot of the local food too spicy, so Indian cooks adapted some of their recipes to suit British tastes. Another example of this is mulligatawny soup. Soups were not a traditional dish in India, but were (and still are!) an essential part of the British diet, so Indian cooks took a local, spicy sauce and transformed it into a soup.
Madras curry can be made mild or hot. This is a mild version that can be used with fish or shrimp, or if you don't want a lot of heat. This is also a simplified version that uses ground spices, instead of the traditional method of toasting the whole ingredients and grinding them.
Ingredients You'll Need
- ground coriander
- ground cumin
- ground turmeric
- ground cinnamon
- mustard powder
- ground fenugreek
- black pepper
- ground ginger
- paprika
- ground nutmeg
- ground cardamom
Substitutions
You can find most of the ingredients for this mix in the spice section of your grocery store. The one that might be hard to find is ground fenugreek. You can order it online, either ground or as seeds. It's said to have a taste and smell similar to maple syrup, but the ground fenugreek I have smells more like celery seed to me. Celery seed is one of the suggested substitutions for fenugreek, and mustard seeds and fennel seeds are also recommended. I haven't tried any of these, and couldn't find any information on rations of fenugreek to any of the substitutions. If you don't have fenugreek and don't want to do a lot of research, I recommend leaving it out altogether.
Most curry mixes contain cloves, but Debbie can't stand them so I substitute allspice or nutmeg.
Need Madras Curry Powder? Make Your Own!
Measure out the spices. On the left, clockwise from the top: coriander, turmeric, cumin, fenugreek, mustard powder, and cinnamon. On the right: black pepper, ginger, nutmeg, paprika, and cardamom.
Pour the spices into a spice grinder, or use a mortal and pestle if you need some exercise. Mix well and store in an airtight container.
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📖 Recipe Card
Easy Madras Curry Powder
Special Equipment Needed
- 1 Spice grinder or mortar and pestle
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons ground coriander
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1 tablespoon ground turmeric
- 1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon yellow mustard powder
- 1 teaspoon ground fenugreek
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
Instructions
- Grind all spices together in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle.
- Put the spice mix in an airtight container.
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