Hello Gastronomy Teams

Hello My Steemain Friends ,

How are you. I hope you people of steemian are good and enjoy your life . Well I am well. May God bless you all. Today I am writing about an interesting Steemit Engagement Challenge S19 - W2: which is all time my favourite topic “Culinary terminology and proper use of herbs and spices.". So, in this post I am going to share my point of view about this topic.

In the competition, I have to choose three words, so I have chosen reduce, brown and garnish. All these three methods have their own art.

Reduce

In this process, when we make any liquid like chutney, sauce, soup etc., then this process is used to thicken it. Because when we make it, it is in a very liquid form. We use this process to bring thickness in it and we keep that liquid on medium flame for some time.

When that liquid becomes half and with the help of a spoon we check its thickness, then turn off the gas and we get a substance of perfect thickness.

I have made tamarind chutney, when I soaked tamarind in water, with sugar and put it on the gas so that the tamarind becomes soft, it boiled, then when I cooled it and filtered it, it was quite liquid. If we put it on our food items like this, then it will not look good and it will also spread here and there in the plate.

So to make the sauce thicker, I used the reduce process on it and kept it on medium flame until its extra water evaporated and it reached a perfect thickness.

Brown

We use this process to make our food items golden brown. In which it gets cooked well and a crispness comes in it. We use this kind of process on things made from refined flour, bread rolls, pakodas etc. Refined flour takes time to cook and when we cook it on low flame, then its color also becomes very beautiful and it cooks well, there is no rawness.

Here I have made samosa by filling potato stuffing inside refined flour and then I will deep fry it on low flame, till its color becomes golden brown. It is very tasty to eat and its flour layer becomes crispy.

Garnish

Garnish is the most beautiful process of eating and it is the last process. The more beautiful the garnish, the more people are excited about eating. Because sometimes, after seeing a beautifully decorated plate, one feels like eating. All this is the magic of Garnish.

Garnish adds life to food, most of the things used in garnish are tomato, onion, cheese, green chilli, green coriander, lemon.

Today I am sharing with you all the process of garnishing a plate of Papdi Chaat. The things I have used in this are onion and potato bhujia and coriander leaves.

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Do you know about the spices and their uses shared in this course? Which other spices would you add to the list?

Black pepper

We use black pepper in many ways, we grind it finely and eat it by sprinkling it on fruits, we also use it in tea in case of cough and cold. It is also used in making garam masala. We also use it in food during fasting.

Fennel seeds

We use fennel seeds in making bitter gourd masala. It is very beneficial for the stomach. Sometimes we also add whole fennel seeds in stuffing of any food item.

Cumin seeds

Cumin seeds are mostly used in two ways, we use whole cumin seeds in tempering and after grinding cumin seeds we eat it by sprinkling it on chaat or fruits.

Cardamom

Cardamom comes in two types, one is small cardamom and the other is big cardamom. We use big cardamom in making masala or in making chole. But we use small cardamom in pulao or in sweets also, it is used by grinding it and taking out its seeds.

Nutmeg

We use nutmeg in making masala. We also use nutmeg as medicine. When small children catch cold, we grind nutmeg and make a paste of it and feed it to the children with honey.

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I would like to add two more spices to it:

Mustard
Fenugreek seeds

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Mustard

Mustard seeds are used in making pickles or Gujarati special snacks like Dhokla Sambar. It gives sourness to the dishes. It is easily available in the market.

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Fenugreek seeds

We use fenugreek seeds in tempering vegetables. Its fragrance is very good, it is also a little bitter. Fenugreek is used in stomach pain.

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Which combination of spices do you use the most in the kitchen and in which preparations do you add it?

We use many types of spices in the kitchen. But mostly we use garam masala. There are many other spices which are combinations like chola masala, rajma masala, paneer masala, we use all these spices only when we make related food items. But we mostly use Garam Masala every day.

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We would like to encourage you to prepare one of the 7 most famous spice mixes in the world or the most used spice mix in your country of origin.

In our country, we prepare Garam Masala by mixing seven or more spices. You will find it in everyone's house. Many people buy it whole and grind it at home and many people buy it readymade from the market and use it. Garam Masala is available in the market from many types of companies, which are easily available. Garam Masala, in simple words, is an expensive spice.

Recipe of Magical Garam Masala

Garam Masala adds to the taste of our food. A pinch of Garam Masala does wonders. It is said that women enjoy with spices in the kitchen, because a pinch does wonders.

The following ingredients are used to make Garam Masala

Black pepper
Cloves
Cardamom
Big cardamom
Cumin
Cinnamon
Mace
Nutmeg
Bay leaf
Long pepper

We mix all these ingredients in the right proportion and roast them on low flame, so that the moisture of those spices goes away and there is no problem in grinding them in the mixer. When it is roasted well, it starts smelling.

Then we cool it and grind it in the mixer and filter it. Our Garam Masala is ready, we add it to dry vegetables, gravy vegetables and make the taste of the vegetable wonderful.

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25% to @null

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I want to invite my friends to take part in this contest: , @waterjoe, , @eliany , @shiftitamanna , @mesola"

Cc: @nahela , @suboohi

Thankyou 🙏

Greetings

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