Cooking with spice mixes, pastes and sauces - Alex Cramer

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knife with swinging movements with another hand and constantly moving herbs to the middle of the blade and chopping them to the desired size. From time to time, you should sweep the chopped herb into a pile in the middle of the board and repeat the entire cutting process over again. For intense chopping of herbs, you will need to constantly repeat this process for several minutes. All movements should be easy, but at the same time certain. The knife should be held tight so that it does not slip off and injure you. If you need the herbs to be of intense grinding, then you should use a blender for these purposes while adding a little of vegetable oil. To grind the herbs in a blender, it is better to use the slowest speed to avoid rapid aroma fading from already chopped herbs.

      Some cooks prefer shredding fresh herbs into thin strips – chiffonade. If you want to do the same, you need to fold leaves of, for example, basil, mint or oregano into a small pile and roll it into a tube as tight as possible. Then place this tube of leaves on a cutting board and cut it across into thin strips firmly holding the tube.

      

      

      Herbs drying.

      

      This is quite an easy process. Foremost, provide yourself with fresh and healthy herbs in full blossom. You need to rinse them in a cold water and dry with a paper towel. Then tie them up into loose bundles and hang them in a well-ventilated place. On the average, drying process takes seven days. Do not dry herbs under open sun or indoors where there is a lot of heat. This can ruin herbs because excessive heat can cause fading of essential oils. Drying process is over when the herbs become breakable and start chirring. At this point, you will have to separate leaves from stems and put them into container for storing. You can crush the leaves if necessary by rubbing them between your palms or using a rolling pin over foil or parchment.

      Herbs freezing.

      

      In case if after drying, adding into a paste or in a sauce you still have some fresh herbs left, then you can freeze them and use them later. Frozen herbs preserve their flavor and aroma for 4-6 months. First of all, rinse them in cold water and dry with a paper towel. After that, cut the herbs and pack small portions of them into plastic containers or ice trays and put them in a freezer. You can also add a small amount of water or oil to the containers with herbs. To freeze whole leaves or even small bunch it is convenient to use bags with zip-lock of various sizes.

      Parchment is very good for freezing individual leaves such as basil, oregano, kaffir lime or sage. You need to prepare parchment sheets of needed size by greasing them with vegetable oil and lay fresh herbs leaves over it one at a time. Once parchment is covered, place another layer of parchment and repeat the process until all the herb leaves are laid out. Once the multilayer bag is ready, wrap it in foil and place in freezer. This method is good because the leaves can be removed one by one and used for their intended purpose.

      OVERALL OVERVIEW ON MIXING SPICES

      There are three main ways of mixing spices:

      Simple stirring of ingredients into a uniform mixture using ground or whole spices.

      Grinding spices in a mortar, mill or coffee grinder and stirring them afterwards.

      Warming spices up in a dry frying pan, grinding and mixing.

      Using Chinese five-spice powder as an example, I am going to show you how to cook it properly. This algorithm can be used to make any dry spice blend.

      First, prepare all the ingredients according to the recipe: cloves, cinnamon, Szechuan pepper, star anise and fennel. Put cloves and star anise into a mortar and crush it slightly. Break a cinnamon stick into 2-3 parts. Heat the frying pan over medium heat and put slightly fragmented star anise and broken cinnamon pieces into frying pan without adding oil. Stir the spices intensively by shaking a frying pan. This is necessary to evenly warm up the spices. As soon as you sense aroma rising, it will mean that the spices are warmed up enough. Then you need to cool them down by removing them into a plate or a bowl. Then put the crushed cloves, fennel seeds and Szechuan pepper into the same frying pan. Repeat the entire warm-up process. Then cool the warmed spices down. Then you will need to bring the spices into necessary texture. Since Chinese five-spice powder requires fine grinding, the mortar will not work for this mix. We will use a blender. Put the spices into blender and crush it into a fine powder. Now your task is a proper storage of the mix. You need to put the mix into a container for storage.

      Any paste consists of three components: spice blend, fresh ingredients and liquid components (oil, juice, vinegar, water, etc.).

      The algorithm for creating spicy pastes is as simple as for spice blends.

      First, you should prepare all the fresh ingredients: peel, cut or grind them. And warm up in a frying pan if necessary.

      Then combine them with spices in a bowl, mortar or coffee grinder, while adding a small amount of liquid.

      And, finally, the last step is to make the paste of right texture.

      PURCHASE AND STORAGE OF SPICES

      Now I am going to give you some tips on buying and storing spices and mixes.

      Unlike ground spices, the whole ones can be stored much longer. Therefore, you should purchase only whole spices. You can always grind them with a coffee grinder, mill or mortar when you need to use them.

      Store spices in a fast shut container. That will help to prevent all the flavors from weathering. Try to avoid containers made of paper, cellophane or plastic. As I mentioned before, the best solution in for quality storage of spices is a glass jar with locking lid.

      Try to buy spices in small amounts if you are not sure you are going to use them within next six months. It would be much better to buy a fresh spice than to use the one that has been stored in your kitchen for more than a year and has lost all its aroma and flavors.

      I highly recommend buying seasonings and spices only in specialty stores and shops, preferably by weight. Nowadays, unfortunately most of the brands represented in supermarkets and hypermarkets are not trustworthy. Most of the spices sold in stores contain various chemical supplements, "glutamates" and other substances that are not beneficial to health and do not make spices any better. And of course, you should not buy spices in markets as the spices are stored in the open air there getting dust and bacteria. On top of everything else, they simply lose their flavor and aroma this way. Therefore, custom shops selling spices and seasonings are the best option for purchasing fresh, aromatic and useful spices.

      Although many seasonings and spices can last for years if properly stored, I do not recommend storing them for longer than one year. For such a long time, flavor and aroma most probably will weather, the spices will fade and will not be able to enrich the dish with flavour you would expect. I update my collection of spices twice a year: in the fall and in the spring. It is necessary to do this to supply your shelf with new fragrant spices that will reward you with delicious culinary dishes. And yet I want to emphasize that spices do not spoil for many, many years and they do not cause harm to health, but the value of such spices, regarding its taste and aroma, would be totally useless.

      Do not store spices near stove or under direct sunlight. Seasonings and spices should be stored a cool, dry and dark place. Keep that in mind. Keep all your spices at a temperature not exceeding 68 ⁰F (20 °С).

      By no means pour the spices into a frying pan or cooking pot from the container in which spices are stored. Steam from the pan will penetrate into the container and worsen the spices quality. Use a dry spoon to scoop up the desired amount of spices.

      Make a habit of adding individual spices or their blends several times during the cooking process. Depending on the dish, you need to add the mixture at the very beginning of cooking so that the spices are mixed with oil and with enrich the main components of

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