Garam Masala which literally means hot (Garam) spice (Masala) is not an spice in itself. It is a spice blend used throughout India and the rest of the Indian Subcontinent.  This special blend of spice is used in a small quantity at the end of cooking or fried in the beginning of cooking to add a subtle flavor to the cooked dish. Please note, garam masala must be added in small quantities, or else it will overpower the dish. Many different kind of Garam Masala is found depending on the region and the personal taste. Garam Masala can be found easily in international section of any big groceries store in west or in any Indian or South Asian shops.

Dosage : 1 coffee spoon / 4 personnes.

Tube of 40ml.

MADRAS MÉDIUM (powder) Origin : India. India is the origin of curry, a name widely recognised all over the world. Because of varied physical form, aroma and flavour an individual spice does not produce the preferred flavour. Indian curry powder is the answer to it. Known as 'curry powder' to the Indians, or simply as 'curry' to the international consumer, the product is a careful blend of selected spices to add pep, flavour and aroma to a wide range of exotic dishes.

Spices are ground and mixed in certain definite proportions to produce curry powder. Some of the important ingredients in curry powder are coriander, turmeric, chillies, cumin, pepper, ginger, cinnamon, cassia, clove etc. It also contains and edible common salt and sometimes added starch. A wide range of products are covered under the category 'Curry'. This includes straight powder, mixed powder, curry powder, curry mixture, masalas, curry paste and seasoning.

Tube of 40ml.

It is often named as the “third most expensive” spice in the world (after saffron and vanilla), and the high price reflects the high reputation of this most pleasantly scented spice. Despite its numerous applications in the cooking styles of Sri Lanka, India and Iran, 60% of the world production is exported to Arab (South West Asia, North Africa) countries, where the larger part is used to prepare coffee. Cardamom-flavoured coffee, almost a symbol for Arab hospitality (qahwa al-arabiya [قهوة العربية]), can be prepared by simply adding freshly ground cardamom seeds to the coffee powder; alternatively, a few cardamom pods may be steeped in the hot coffee. Bedouins (Arabic nomads) sometimes own coffee pots that can keep several cardamom capsules in their spouts; the coffee gets in contact with the spice only during being poured into the glass.

Tube of 40ml.

In most countries of Northern and Eastern Europe, cumin is of little importance as a traditional flavouring, and consequently, is seen as an alien spice comparable to but distinct from the native spice caraway . Often, the languages make poor distinction between the both, which may lead to troublesome confusion in cooking; more often, cumin is named as a foreign variety of caraway: “Turkish caraway” (Romanian chimion turcesc), “Eastern caraway” (Slovenian orientalske kumin) or even “Egyptian caraway” (Hungarian egyiptomi kömény). In countries where cumin is favoured over caraway, the same system often works in the opposite direction, and caraway is then named “German cumin” or similar.

Tube of 40ml.

Juniperus communis. (cones) Origin: Macedonia. The berry-like cones. They take two years to mature. Aromatic with a sweet accent, similar to the South American pink pepper.

It is an important spice in many European cuisines, especially in Alpine regions, where juniper grows abundantly. It is the only example of a spice in the botanic group of the coniferae, and also one of the few examples of spices from cold climatic regions, though the best quality stems from Southern European countries.

Juniper is much used in the traditional cuisine of Central Europe, e.g. for the Southern German specialty Sauerkraut. For its preparation, fresh cabbage is preserved by lactic fermentation and seasoned with juniper, and maybe a few> bay leaves. The taste then develops during aging in large wooden barrels. Sauerkraut can either be eaten raw (as a kind of salad), or be cooked or fried (often together with small cubes of smoked ham or bacon) to be served as a side dish; there are also dumplings stuffed with it.

Juniper's main application is, however, meat; it is felt indispensable for venison and combines well with black pepper, marjoram and laurel berries. Juniper berries, properly called cones, should be crushed immediately before use.

Although juniper berries are harmless for healthy people, their massive use is discouraged for people with kidney weakness and pregnant women.

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It is a very important spice in India, which produces nearly the whole world's crop and uses 80% of it. Turmeric usage dates back nearly 4000 years, to the Vedic culture in India, when turmeric was the principal spice and also of religious significance. In today's India, turmeric is still added to nearly every dish, be it meat or vegetables. I found the largest quantities of it in boiled lentils (see also or potatoes. Furthermore, it appears in rice dishes (pullao), although turmeric-dyed rice is not very common in India, which might surprise people who consider curry rice “typical Indian”. Still, turmeric is part of all curry powders (see curry leaves for more information on this Anglo-Indian spice mixture). Due to Indian influence, turmeric has also made its way to the cuisine of Ethiopia (see long pepper).

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17cm.  Vanilla fragrans.  Vanilla is native to Central America and has a long record of pre-Columbian usage. Both the Mayas and, later, the Aztecs used Vanilla to flavour a special drink prepared from water, cocoa beans and spices: chacau haa (or chocol haa) in the Mayan and cacahuatl in the Aztec tongue (Náhuatl).

Mayan chocolate, as is still drunk in southern México (Yucatán), Guatemala and Belize, is often spicy, containing chiles and other native (allspice, annatto) or imported (black pepper, cinnamon) spices. Sweeteners (sugar or honey) are possible but in no way mandatory. The drink is enjoyed hot or cold, but in any case it is whipped such that it becomes foamy; the foam is considered the most delicious part.

The Aztecs drank chocolate mostly cold and often used honey to get a sweet product; in our days, of course, cane sugar is more common. Aztec chocolate may contain all aromatics mentioned in the previous paragraph, and more (e.g., paprika or Mexican pepper leaves); for cultic purposes, the deeply red colour brought by addition of annatto was highly esteemed. When Hernán Cortés forced the Aztec ruler Moctezuma to grant him an audience on November 14th, 1519, he was the first European to try chocolate; less than three years later, the great Aztec capital Tenochtitlán had been shattered to pieces, and the Aztec empire had ceased to exist

Tube of 40ml.

Tube of 40ml.

Tube of 40ml.

Tube of 40ml.

Tube of 40ml.

Tube of 40ml/0.5 gr.

Myristica fragrans. Origine : Indonésie. Nutmeg is not a nut, but the kernel of an apricot-like fruit. Mace is an arillus, a thin leathery tissue between the stone and the pulp; it is bright red to purple when harvested, but after drying changes to amber.

Illicium verum. It is mostly restricted to bread and cakes; occasionally, fruit products are aromatized with anise. In small dosage, anise seeds are sometimes contained in spice mixtures for sausages and stews. Their main applications are, however, anise-flavoured liquors, of which there are many in different Mediterranean countries: Rakı in Turkey, Ouzo [Ούζο] in Greece and Pernod in France; see also mugwort on absinthe. In many cases, oil of anise is substituted by oil of star anise in these products, at least partially.

In the East, anise is less known, fennel and star anise being more easily available and more popular. Anise may substitute fennel in Northern Indian recipes, but it is a less suited substitute for star anise in Chinese foods.

Myristica fragrans. (arille de la noix de muscade) Origin : Indonesia.

Naturally, nutmeg is limited to the Banda Islands, a tiny archipelago in Eastern Indonesia (Moluccas). Main producing countries today are Indonesia (East Indian Nutmeg) and Grenada (West Indian Nutmeg); while Indonesian nutmegs are mainly exported to Europe and Asia, Grenada nutmeg mostly finds its way into the USA.

Nutmegs are graded according to their size. Larger nutmegs with a mass around 8 g are considered superior and are traded at higher price. Especially in Grenada, it is common to specify the size of nutmegs as the number of dried nutmegs per British pound; accordingly, the best qualities are referred to as “55' nuts” (8.2 g) to “65' nuts” (7.0 g). The smallest grades traded in native state are “160' nuts” at only 2.8 g. Even smaller nutmegs and nutmeg fragments are included into the “BWP grade” which is the lowest quality.

Two more nutmeg species are found as adulterants of true nutmeg or mace: M. argentea (Macassar Nutmeg, Papua Nutmeg) from New Guinea and M. malabarica (Bombay Nutmeg, Wild Nutmeg) from South India. While the latter lacks fragrance, the former is described as pungent and wintergreen-like. Both adulterants can be identified by their seeds' shape: Whereas true Banda nutmegs are shaped globularly to egg-like, with their largest dimension at most 50% longer than the smallest, the two other species feature strongly prolate seeds more reminiscent to acorns (oak seeds) than eggs

Tubes of 100 ml.

Tubes of 100 ml.

Tubes of 100 ml.