SPICES

Spices are the essential ingredient to elaborate any Indian dishes. Spices give Indian cuisine its own unique character and make it easily identifiable anywhere in the world. They provide aroma, give flavour, colour, some help digestion and others stimulate the palate. They have been used since ancient times to preserve food and in Ayurvedic medicine.

Spices can be used fresh or dried. Dried spices are used whole or ground. Although ground spices, which are usually found in powder form, are the most widely used in Indian cooking, whole spices are also widely used, especially in vegetarian dishes.

Today I am going to write about the most used spices in Indian cuisine. In India, there is a great variety of spices; here is a small selection of those: