[Sca-cooks] Spices

[Philippa Alderton]

--- A F Murphy <afmmurphy at earthlink.net> wrote:
> So I went to the Pepperer's Guild, and now I have
> Long Pepper, cubebs,
> galangale, blade mace, and I don't remember what
> else... So now what do
> I do? :-\

Well, if you'll take another set of suggestions ;-)

> I remember Phlip, I think it was, suggesting using
> them in simple every
> day dishes to get an idea of the flavor, which I
> think is a great idea,
> and which I will try.  But these are all whole
> spices. Any suggestions?

Sometimes a dish is better with whole spices,
sometimes it's better with ground- that's one of the
things that are inherent in the dish. But, as a
general rule, if you want the flavor of a spice,
you're best off grinding them freshly.

Plan on "wasting" a bit. Take your spices, freshly
ground, and just smelling them a bit? What do they
smell like? Do they smell like something that would
enhance your beef, or are they subtle enough for a
mild chicken dish? A very good base dish for many
spices is something fairly mild, like macaroni and
cheese. There's really not too much you can do
mac-n-cheese to really ruin it (other than buy that
boxed crap) so it's a good test dish, if you go with a
fairly neutral cheese.

And look in your cookbooks. If I can go through all
the collections I did, in a couple of hours, looking
for references to mastic, you can do the same for long
pepper or gallingale. Just try to make sure you know
the alternate spellings. As you go through the
recipes, you'll start to realize that this item is
used mostly in what we would consider sweet or savory
dishes, or mostly with fruits, or perhaps mostly with
game meats. Then, if you're not sure of your redaction
skills, use a familiar recipe that uses the
ingredient(s) you find it matched with most commonly.

Just relax, and play, and use your common sense.
Unless you're Stefan, with his engineer's mind ;-),
you'll quickly find you have a feel for how it fits.

Phlip


=====
Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....

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