The Cooking Spices

Known in India as mango ginger and as white tumeric in other parts of Asia, zedoary is rhizome from the TURMERIC family. It has the appearance of GINGER and a strong, musky, ginger-like and slightly bitter flavor similar to green mango, and is used in Thai, Indian and Indonesian cooking. Fresh zedoary can be pounded or ground with other aromatics such as ginger, turmeric and garlic to make spice pastes; it is also thinly sliced, chopped or minced and added to Asian salads, and is common in pickles and condiments.

Dried zedoary is often sold under its Indonesian name, kencur and is usually added to broths or sauces for flavoring and then discarded. Zedoary is highly regarded as a blood purifier and a healing agent for the skin.

Available : Asian food stores.

Wasabi, which translated as “mountain hollyhock”, is a horseadish that grows wild near spring water in the mountains of northern Japan. It is unrelated to the European with HORSEADISH. The very expensive fresh pale-green root is available only in Japan and is grated before use as a condiment to accompany raw fish and sushi rice. Elsewhere, wasabi is available as a powder or paste, although it is grown in Taiwan and New Zealand on a smaller, less-successful scale.

Specific to Japanese cooking, wasabi has a milder aroma and gentler, more aromatic but nonetheless hotter flavor than the sharper white horseadish. It is best to buy powdered wasabi and mix the required quantity with water as the paste can be quite impotent by comparison.

Available : Asian food stores.

Or pods grow on a fleshly tropical orchid native to Mexico and Central America. The beans are picked when immature and yellow and are then sundried forup to several months, during which time thetferment and develop their familiar brown, wrinkled appearance and rich, mellow tobacco-like aroma. Each bean produces thousands of tiny, highly fragrant seeds that, along with the pod, add an exotic, intense and characteristic flavor to food, a flavor particularly suited to dessert work, confectionery and chocolate.

Three types of vanilla bean are available : The Madagascan, a thin but sweet and rich pod; the thick dark and aromatic Tahitian and the scarce Mexican, which is smooth and rich. Whichever you choose, select plump vanilla beans that feel slight moist and sticky. Pure vanilla extract is the only real substitute for a vanilla bean. There are many imitation and poor-quality flavorings on the market that should be avoided at all costs. The pure extract is costly, but a little goes a long way.

Available : widely.

A rhizome related to the GINGER family, turmeric is bright-orange when fresh and becomes a vibrant yellow with drying. Dried and ground turmeric is a common ingredient in Asian cooking, providing a brilliant yellow color and musky flavor. It is also used fresh as a vegetable in Southeast Asia.

Essential in making of curry powder and the North African spice mix, turmeric has long been respected for its medicinal properties and as a fabric dye. Turmeric, valued for its antiseptic qualities, is made into a tonic for treating liver complaints, is considered a blood purifier and in India is used as a skin cleanser when mixed with milk.

Available : widely

Literally translating as “Indian date”, tamarind is produced from the pods of the tamarind tree, a native a tropical east Africa that has been cultivated in India since ancient times and that now grows in tropical countries across the globe. The pods contain seeds and a dark-brown, sticky pulp that is dried, with or without the seeds intact, for use as a souring agent in all Asian cooking, in sauces, curries, soups with fish and poultry and so on.

Tamarind gives food a fruity, sweet-sour flavor. It is considered a mild laxative and digestive aid and it is used to treat bronchitis and sore throats.
The most refined way to use tamarind is to make tamarind juice. Simmer 1 part tamarind pulp to 3 parts water for 30 minutes and so, then pass the pulp and water through a coarse-meshed sieve to remove the fiber and seeds, which can be discarded. Tamarind juice can be refrigerated for up to a month and used as required.

Available : Asian food stores.