dry spices
1. dry fry the spices for a few minutes on low heat until it is fragrant,
remove from heat & allow to cool.
2. pound spices as to recipe & mix in other dry spices like chilli powder,
turmeric powder etc. to complete the dry spice/curry powder mix. This is how
dry spices or curry powders are made. To use add a little water to form a
wet paste & use as req. in curries or rub over meat.

wet spices
1. add fresh spices, chillis, ginger root, turmeric root, galangal etc. into
mortar & pestle by firmness & begin pounding. Start with the toughest like
ginger root, tumeric root or lemon grass etc. & ending with coriander or
cumin stems/roots & fresh chillis. This is how wet spices or fresh curry
paste is made. Have a look at how Thai curry pastes are made.

dry + wet.
a combination of the above, for example dry fry coriander seeds, cumin
seeds, etc. & allow to cool, pound to fine & remove, next pound lemon grass,
ginger, chillis etc. finally mix it all together with a sprinkling of
turmeric powder. Add a little water to form a paste if it's too dry.

spices with pods like green cardamom are dry fried with pods, after cooling
remove pods to extract the black seeds. cloves & star anise can be dry fried
then pounded or ground to fine powder but best used immediately. Keeping
these or any spices in powder form for long periods will mean they will
loose their flavours.

Generally, most spices (dry & fresh) are ground to fine powder or fine pulp
then used accordingly. In older or traditional recipes or village style
food, there is a slight preference for a 'rougher' ground or pulp rempah or
bambu (spice paste) i.e. not too fine, people like to have a bit of texture
in their sauce or gravy provided by the fibres or rough ground spices. You
can see this by comparing curries or rendangs esp. between a modern 'styled'
rendang & a traditionally made rendang. I prefer the old style not because
it's more authentic but because it has better texture & is more pungent as
you find the odd bit of lemon grass or chilli seed that suddenly explodes
with flavour in your mouth.

Maybe you need to find an old Malaysian or Indonesian recipe book that shows
you how to make curries from scratch, you'll then see & taste the
difference.

hope this helps.

DC.



"Scet" > wrote in message
...
> Hi,
> I have been making curries for a few years now, sometimes I use Babas
> curry powder and spices and sometimes if I an feeling lazy I use paste.
>
> When I use spices such as cloves, fennel, cardomom pods and star anise, my
> kids complain about chewiing on a whole clove or fennel etc. My wife and I
> usually spot them before we eat it but the kids just shovel it in. Is
there
> anyway or trick to cooking with spices to prevent this? Do I have to
> labouriously pick through it all and remove them?
>
> What do restaurants and street hawkers do? I have spent 14 weeks in
Malaysia
> and don't remember having that problem.
>
> Any advice is appreciated.
>
> Scet
>
>