Garam masala

Recipe

Serves: makes about 3 tablespoons

Cooking and preparation

• Preparations time: 10 minutes
• Cooking time: none

Ingredients

• For the garam masala

• 1 tbsp cardamom seeds (if you can't buy the seeds then buy cardamom pods and shell them yourself)
• 1 tsp black peppercorns
• 1 tsp black cumin seeds (you can use regular cumin seeds if black aren't available)
• 1 tsp whole cloves
• 1/3 of a whole nutmeg (you can break a whole nutmeg by placing it on a cloth and bashing it with a meat mallet or rolling pin)
• a medium stick of cinnamon, about 5-8cm/2-3 inches, broken up into 3-4 pieces

Method

1. Put all the ingredients in a clean coffee grinder or other spice grinder and grind as finely as possible.

2. Store in a tightly lidded jar, away from heat and sunlight and use as needed.

Step by step

1. 

   Step 1

   For the garam masala, put all the garam masala spices in a clean coffee grinder or other spice grinder.
2. 

   Step 2

   Break the nutmeg into pieces by placing it on a cloth and bashing it with a meat mallet.
3. 

   Step 3

   Add the nutmeg to the grinder and grind all the spices as finely as possible. Store in a tightly lidded jar, away from heat and sunlight. Makes about three tablespoons.