Cooking with spices is one of the most enjoyable and satisfying of culinary pursuits. It’s that giddy euphoria and excitement that one feels whilst cooking with spices that makes me do it over and over again. Spices are wonderfully aromatic, aesthetically beautiful and add a great complex of flavours to any dish.

The dishes that I have listed below are taken from Charmaine Solomon’s epic work The Complete Asian Cookbook. If you follow the recipe as it is written, you will create a fantastic meal. However, cooking dishes like curry from scratch and spice cooking in general allows for experimentation and creativity for the culinarian. I encourage you not to follow any spice recipe with great precision. Play around a bit by adding different quantities of spice and adding completely new spices into the dish.

When mixing and adding spices to your dish, follow your instinct and palate, don’t be afraid to make mistakes. With a healthy stock of spices at your disposal, you have the opportunity to make your aromas more intense and your flavours more complex or harmonised. After some experience with playing around with your ingredients you will learn more about which flavours suit your palate and which spices compliment other spices to create wonderful, unique dishes.

Spice skills and knowledge are fantastic things to have and bear many fruits for the daring cuisinier. As you become a more confident and refined spice aficionado, feel the intense levels of self satisfaction from your ability to create glorious smells and flavours. Witness yourself becoming the most loved and respected member of your household as you fill the rooms of your home with sensational smells from the kitchen. Your friends will be in awe of your culinary prowess at your next dinner party. And after an afternoon of pursuing the art of spicing, take your own spiced curry to work in a plastic tupperware container and silently mock the philistine colleague next to you eating a meat pie with tomato sauce.

Spices are inexpensive, but it is important to be discerning with your purchases. Do not buy your spices from the supermarket. Do not do it. You may as well not bother to cook Asian dishes at all if you choose to select your precious ingredients from such an awful place. Spice ingredients must be purchased from places which appreciate the wonders of Asian cooking.

The next opportunity you get, visit your local Asian spice store or Asian supermarket. There’s a great little Indian and Pakistani spice store on Carlisle street called Limra Groceries that I’ve been visiting for years. Spices are cheap and they last for ages, so be sure to indulge and invest in as many different spices as you can afford.

To store them, put them into separate glass jars. Clear out a section of your pantry and fill it with your glass jars full of colourful spices, they look fantastic and fill your pantry with heavenly oriental scents.

Machchi Kari – Fish Curry (India/Pakistan)

I have used both Trevally and Gem fish to cook this curry, and both have been great. However you can use any kind of fresh fish in this dish. Solomon recommends that you use a fish with strong flavour and dark flesh such as Kingfish, Tuna, Trevally or small fish such as sardines or anchovies. Fenugreek is almost always used in a fish curry, particularly with strongly flavoured fish.

• 500g fish steaks or fillets or small whole fish
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 6-8 curry leaves
• 1 medium onion, finely sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, finely sliced
• 1 tablespoon finely grated fresh ginger
• 1 tablespoon ground coriander
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• ½ teaspoon ground turmeric
• ½ - 1 teaspoon chilli powder
• ½ teaspoon ground fenugreek
• 2 cups coconut milk
• 1½ teaspoons salt or to taste
• lemon juice to taste

Wash fish well. If small fish are used, clean and scale them. If large steaks or fillets are used, debone them and cut them into serving pieces. On a low heat, heat the oil and fry the curry leaves until slightly brown, then add onion and fry until soft and golden. Add garlic and ginger. As the garlic becomes aromatic, add all the ground spices and fry, stirring until you smell the aroma of the spices. Add coconut milk and salt and bring to the boil, stirring. Simmer uncovered for 10 minutes, then put in the fish, ladle the liquid over it and simmer until fish is well cooked. Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice to taste. Serve hot with rice.

Elolu Kiri Hodhi – Vegetable Curry (Sri Lanka)

Here is the basic white curry. In it you can cook beans, pumpkin, okra, capsicum, potatoes, zucchini, asparagus or other vegetables of your choice. All ingredients should be available at Asian grocers.

• 3 cups thin coconut milk
• 1 medium onion, finely sliced
• 2 fresh green chillies seeded and split
• ½ teaspoon ground turmeric
• 2 cloves garlic, finely sliced
• ½ teaspoon finely grated fresh ginger
• 5cm cinnamon stick
• 4 pieces dried daun pandan or rampé leaf
• 1 stalk lemon grass or 2 strips lemon rind, optional
• 8 curry leaves
• 750g vegetables, sliced
• salt to taste
• 1 cup thick coconut milk

Put all ingredients, except sliced vegetable, slat and thick coconut milk in a large saucepan and simmer gently, uncovered for approx 10 minutes. Add sliced vegetables and salt and cook gently until vegetables are just tender. Add thick coconut milk and simmer about 5 minutes longer. Serve with boiled rice, other curries and accompaniments.

Sunday Relish was taking a much needed holiday this month, so Jack Peddey did a splendid job of stepping up to the typewritter in her absence. Thanks Jack!

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