Meat!

Sunday nights are officially my lovely fiancé sled's night to cook. Last night he decided to try saag paneer (also known as palak paneer) and found this recipe from the food network.

Now the recipe left something to be desired, mostly that they were aiming for far too bland for our taste. Maybe with half the spinach and the same amount of everything else (which is what we did towards the end when it became evident that the recipe was too bland -- we started throwing in more of everything else and were able to salvage it). So I'm not reposting the recipe here, I'm only holding on to the good part, which is the curry powder. The following is cribbed directly from their site.

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Curry Powder:
2 tablespoons coriander seeds
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1/2 teaspoon whole cloves
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 tablespoon cardamom seeds
1 tablespoon whole black peppercorns
2 dried red chiles, broken in pieces, seeds discarded
1 tablespoon turmeric

Toast the whole spices (coriander, cumin, fennel, cloves, mustard, cardamom and peppercorns) and the chiles in a small dry skillet over medium-low heat, shaking the pan often to prevent them from burning. Toast for a couple of minutes until the spices smell fragrant. In a clean coffee grinder, grind the toasted spices together to a fine powder. Add the turmeric and give it another quick buzz to combine. Use the spice blend immediately, or store in a sealed jar for as long as 1 month.

Yield: about 1/2 cup

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But we just used a mortar and pestle. It sounds like a lot of extra effort and for very large quantities it is. But for half a cup, ::shrug::. And you get to smell it as you crush it. I consider it akin to hand-whipping cream -- it's usually worth it. In fact, I'm quickly coming to believe that it's not worthwhile to buy pre-mixed curry powder. It's much much better when it's fresh and you mix and grind yourself, and the fragrance is both more potent and more nuanced. Thai curries are a little more difficult to make from scratch, just because of all the wet ingredients and the larger volumes, so I could totally see taking a shortcut and using stuff from the can. But with a totally dry curry mix... I think it's always worth it to make it from scratch.