Do you ever think how the restaurant meals taste so good despite being made with the same ingredient that we use in home cooking? If so, then let’s reveal the secret here, it is the different ranges of packaged spices that make restaurant food so tempting.
Spices originating from the middle east have made their way to various cuisine around the world. Undoubtedly, spices can accentuate the taste of any food to higher levels by giving a wide range of flavors.
A pouch of spices can look boring when you purchase it. However, it beholds the power to enhance the flavor of every kind of dish. Some spices give that lovely color to your food, whereas some give that strong punch to the taste.
Likewise, some spices also give a strong aroma to the food making it more tempting to eat. Whatever the dish may be, sweet, tangy, or sour, it is the spices that behold the power to take them interesting.
Ways to use packaged spices in restaurant dishes
- You may use spices for marination of the raw meat or vegetables before toasting, roasting, or frying them. Spices like turmeric, cumin powder, black pepper powder, and paprika are often used as marinating spices.
- Spices are often used for cooking curry bases in restaurants. Most salty and tangy dishes use spices like black pepper, paprika, and chili powder are used to bring that tanginess to food.
- Spices are often used in making barbeque sauces and to make pickles.
- Spices are used in bakeries as well. The spices like Cinnamon, Cloves, and Cardamom are often used in baking bread, cupcakes, and pies.
- In restaurant-quality meals, spices are also used for garnishing the meals. Spices like thyme, rosemary, chives, and cilantro are used to garnish the dish.
Besides adding flavor, spices also have health benefits for their consumers. Spices like clove, black pepper, cinnamon, and rosemary are rich in antioxidants. The spices are also natural preservatives of foods. Especially the spices with a strong, pungent smell can often be used as natural preservatives for food.
Some packaged spices and their usage
Turmeric Powder
Turmeric is one major ingredient that is used in most of the curry dishes made in restaurants. The yellowish powder looks so simple in the store; however, it holds power to change the outlook of a dish. Turmeric is mostly used in Indian, Nepali, and Caribbean cuisines.
Besides, turmeric also adds a warm and earthy flavor to the food along with the color.
Chili/ Paprika Powder
The bright red colored Chili/Paprika powder is made by grinding chilies or sweet orange and red peppers. It can range from mild to hot depending on the varieties of chilies used.
This powder can add both color and flavor to the food which you intend to cook.
Curry Powder
Curry powder is a mix of spices that are used to make curries, soups, and other salty and savory Indian dishes. It is a mixture of different spices in proportion. The spices like turmeric, ginger, cumin, black pepper, and coriander.
Although curry powder is primarily famous in India, there are other different types of curry powder in different parts of the world. The Thai curry powder also has lemongrass, and lime leaves to add that tanginess. In comparison, Caribbean curry powder gets its sweet and savory taste from spices like star anise and allspice. Get loans online.
These spices are primarily used for cooking vegetables and meat.
Black Pepper Powder
Black pepper is the most used spice around the globe. The powdered black pepper is packaged and served as a spice for cooking as well as the soul mate for table salt too.
Black pepper is used for cooking curries, noodles, pasta, and other salty, tangy, or savory dishes. It is also used in salad dressings and stir-fries.
Chicken/Meat/Fish Masala
Chicken masala or meat masala is another famous spice in the Nepali spice market. The spice supposedly accentuates the taste of meat as it contains ingredients that compliment the non-vegetarian dishes.
A typical meat masala consists of cumin, coriander, black pepper, onion, garlic, tomato, turmeric, fenugreek, nutmeg, and fennel seeds. Fish masala also has the same ingredients along with dried mango as citrus compliments the taste of fish.
These spices are used to marinate the meat as well as to cook them as curry.
Kitchen King spices
As the name suggests, Kitchen king is the king of all spices that are majorly used in Nepali and Indian dishes. It has a mixture of spices like Coriander, Chili, Turmeric, Black Pepper, Caraway seeds, Fennel Seeds, Black Pepper, Cumin, Fenugreek, Yellow Mustard Seeds, Green and Black Cardamoms, Cinnamon sticks, Star Anise, Cloves, and Mace.
These above-mentioned spices are roasted and blended to make Kitchen king. This mixture of spices is used for cooking many curries and vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes.
The packaged kitchen king is a widely used spice in restaurant-style cooking.
Cinnamon Powder
This spice is major used in bakeries. It is prepared by grinding cinnamon sticks into fine powdery form. Cinnamon is used to make cinnamon rolls, cakes, and desserts, and it is also used in curries as well.
These boring-looking packaged spices can be flawlessly tuned into restaurant-quality meals. In fact, it is these spices that make the restaurant’s quality meal so tasty and full of flavors. Since restaurants have busy kitchens, it can be troublesome to individually buy every spice and grind them. Thus, packaged spices have been proved to be a blessing to the chefs in the restaurant.
The ready-made packaged spices have a perfect blend of all necessary ingredients; hence they are handy to use as well.