Essential Spices for Everyday Cooking and Recipes to Use Them In

These 10 essential spices for cooking are the spices you need in your kitchen if you don’t reach for the spice rack regularly. They’re spices we cook with every day. Used sparingly they’ll add subtle flavour and fragrance to salads, vegetables, pasta, and rice. Blend numerous spices to give greater depth and complexity to curries, chillies, soups, and stews.

Living in Southeast Asia, we use spices every day, although we’ve used spices in the kitchen for as long as we’ve been cooking. Spices have been used for thousands of years, as much for their healing powers as for their taste and scent. One of the easiest and fastest ways to add aroma and deliciousness to a dish is to add spice; the more spices you combine, the deeper the complexity of fragrance and flavours.

If you’re not already regularly sprinkling spices into dishes, these are the 10 essential spices for everyday use that we love, which we encourage you to incorporate into your cooking. These spices will season your food and enhance the flavour of dishes immeasurably. These are the spices that we use every day; the spices that frequently appear on our shopping list.

If you’re new to cooking with spices, what are spices exactly? Spices are the fragrant, flavour-packed parts of plants – the seeds, roots, rhizomes, stems, flowers, fruits, barks, and resins – that are dried and sold as either whole spices, which you can use as is (eg, star anise, cinnamon sticks, cassia bark), grind at home as needed, or buy as ground spices in a powder form.

Herbs and spices – one is rarely mentioned without the other, so how are spices different to herbs? Herbs are the leafy parts of plants, herbs are also scented and delicious, and herbs can also be used fresh or dried. We grow fresh coriander, basil and dill on our balcony, but we also have ground coriander, dill seeds, and dried basil in our spice trolley, though here in Southeast Asia we tend to use fresh herbs more than dried herbs.

Spices have long been used to preserve food and improve its taste, but spices have also been used for their therapeutic properties in natural medicine since ancient times, as well as used as toothpaste, a deodorant, perfume, clothes dye, disinfectant, household cleaner, and insect repellent. Here in Cambodia, villagers still use spices for the same purposes, particularly as traditional medicines.

But for most of us, we use spices to flavour our food. One of the oldest written records of spices used in food was found on clay tablets dating to the third millennium BC and Mari civilisation of ancient Mesopotamia in modern Syria, which referenced cumin and coriander – two of our ten essential spices and perhaps our most-used spices. We love them in this dukkah recipe.

But before I tell you about our essential spices for cooking, I have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader-supported. If you’ve enjoyed our recipes, please consider supporting Grantourismo. For instance, you could buy something on Amazon, such as one of these classic cookbooks for serious cooks or cookbooks for culinary travellers; book a cooking class or meal with locals on EatWith; or you could buy a handcrafted KROK, the best mortar and pestle ever.

And if you’re looking for more cooking inspiration, we have many hundreds of recipes from around the world in our archives from places we’ve lived, travelled and loved. Note that you can save your favourites by clicking on the heart on the right of any post to create your own private account. Now let me tell you all about our essential spices for everyday cooking.

Essential Spices You Need in Your Kitchen – The Spices We Cook with Every Day

Before I tell you about the 10 essential spices you need in your kitchen and share some recipes you can use those spices in, I have some tips for buying and storing spices, because there are a few important things you need to know in order to maintain the intensity of your spices.

If you don’t reach for your spice rack regularly, and if you’re one of those people who have a spice rack holding a dozen herbs and spices that you haven’t used in years, then maybe you’re just not a lover of spices. Or maybe you’re in a cooking rut and need inspiration and in that case read on. But first you need to deal with that spice rack.

Our Guide to Buying, Storing and Grinding Spices

Some quick tips on where to keep your spices, where to buy spices, how to store spices, how to grind spices, and how to roast spices.

Where to Keep Your Spices

Spices don’t last forever, despite being sold dried, especially if the spices are exposed to sunlight and air. That means that while that spice rack might look lovely fixed to your kitchen wall or standing on the counter, the life of your spices will be cut short and their fragrance and flavours dissipated if you leave them there.

We don’t actually have a spice rack. One wouldn’t fit the scores of jars, containers and bags holding dried spices, spice blends, dried herbs, dried chillies, salt mixes, and seasonings that cram the multi-tiered spice cart on wheels that we use. The wheels are fantastic as we can spin it around and move it between the prep bench and stove.

Our spice cart is actually kept in the light, but only the lids are exposed to sunlight. Pantry storage wouldn’t be suitable for us, as we reach for the spices so often, sometimes just to grab some ground paprika or chilli flakes to shake onto steamed rice or cooked eggs, at other times to pull out eight or nine jars of spices for an Indian curry or Mexican chilli.

If you’re not using spices every day you’re probably not going to start, but even if you’re only an occasional user, you still need to deal with that spice rack. If you haven’t used your spices in a long time, look at the colour, open the lids, take a whiff, and put a little on your tongue. If the spices are dull, no longer smell, and taste dusty or like dirt, discard them.

Start by moving your spice rack into the pantry or a dry, dark cupboard. But make sure it’s one that’s easily accessible. Don’t hide your spices – out of sight, out of mind. Keep them near sauces, condiments and seasonings you regularly use, such as salt, sugar and Sriracha, your tomato sauces, olive oils and vinegars. Then go buy our essential spices.

Where to Buy Spices

Buy your essential spices from a spice market if you can, as dried spices won’t get any fresher due to the high turnover of a busy market. If your local market doesn’t sell a lot of dried spices – for example, here in Cambodia curry pastes are pounded primarily from fresh ingredients rather than dried – head to a specialised spice shop or find a supermarket with a good spice section.

Our best local supermarket here in Siem Reap, for instance, has a high turnover of spices, which they buy wholesale, so they’re always fresh, look vibrant, smell fragrant, and taste flavourful, even before we add them to food.

We can buy most spices that we use regularly here, except Middle Eastern spices we love such as sumac, saffron and Aleppo pepper, which we’ll ask friends travelling here to bring to us when they’re visiting. If you’re lucky enough to have access to Amazon, you should find most spices you need online.

How to Store Spices

As we use our spices frequently – especially the essential spices below – we tend to transfer the spices from the cumbersome containers we buy them in (which crack easily, exposing the spices to air) to air-tight jars, using a stainless steel spice funnel. We use mason jars and clip-top Kilner jars for whole spices and spice mixes we blend ourselves.

Every now and then, when we’re running low, we’ll do a stock-take, we’ll stock up, and we’ll set aside an hour one evening to re-fill jars and re-label the lids – which is why you don’t see labels on the sides of the jars. It’s faster and more fun to do it together with some music on and glasses of wine.

How to Grind Spices

To grind whole spices, such as coriander seeds, fenugreek and caraway seeds into ground spices or a spice powder, you can use a spice grinder, a coffee grinder or a mortar and pestle – we adore this handcrafted mortar and pestle called a KROK that’s made to order in three days in Thailand. Or you can use a food processor or a coffee and spice grinder.

After grinding the spices, put the freshly ground spices through a fine mesh sieve or dedicated spice strainer into a large clean bowl, which you can then pour through a funnel into jars or combine the spices in the bowl to create spice blends. We’re going to cover blending spices and essential spice mixes in another post.

How to Roast Spices

Sometimes recipes will call for roasted spices or pan-roasted spices. You can pan-roast spices in a dry non-stick pan or cast-iron pan to release their aromatic oils. If I’m only roasting a tiny amount of spices, I’ll use this small non-stick pan.

Pan-roasting spices might take anything from a minute to a few minutes, depending on the spices. You need to watch the spices closely and take care not to toast the spices too much as you don’t want to burn the spices.

Now let’s tell you what our essential spices are for everyday cooking, the spices we most use in our kitchen.

Essential Spices for Cooking and the Recipes to Use Them In

Our ten essential spices include (top row L-R) garlic powder, chilli powder, onion powder, chilli flakes, ground coriander; (bottom row L-R): cumin, turmeric, paprika, allspice, and curry powder. Yes, we know, curry powder is a spice blend, not a spice, but it’s one of our essentials so we couldn’t leave it out. LD=Lara’s essential spices and TC=Terence’s favourites spices.

GARLIC POWDER

For the longest time I wondered what on earth anyone would use garlic powder for when they can use fresh garlic – until I started making Belles Hot Chicken’s Australian take on American-style southern fried chicken. Ever since, garlic powder has become one of our essential spices.

But is garlic powder a spice or a seasoning? Well, garlic powder is essentially pulverised dehydrated garlic, and garlic is a species of bulbous flowering plant in the genus allium, a close relation of chives, shallots, onions, and leeks. The garlic plant’s bulb is divided into garlic cloves, and bulbs are essentially short stems, so, yes.

As far as Belles Hot Chicken goes, garlic powder is perfect in the seasoned flour coating for the raw chicken, as well as the spicy seasoning in which you roll the fried chicken. Since my discovery, I’ve used garlic powder in the seasonings for most of my fried chicken recipes.

While it’s hard to beat the flavour of fresh garlic cloves, especially when fried in olive oil for a rich Italian tomato-based pasta sauce, we’ve since found countless other uses for garlic powder, from tender savoury meatballs to the white bean purees that Lara uses as a base for vegetables sides and salads.

You essentially want to use garlic powder where you need garlic flavour, but you don’t want to be biting into or swallowing pieces of garlic. I use garlic powder in the filling for my Sichuan style wontons, in this creamy hummus, in tonkatsu sauce, and in burger patties.

A tip for storing your garlic powder – garlic powder has a long life and can last years, unless you use it as much as we do, and it only lasts weeks, however, you have to store it in a cool dry place. If it’s too hot and/or humid, it will clump together and go hard. As we live in the tropics, our garlic powder lives in the cheese drawer of our fridge. TC

Best Fried Chicken Recipes for Korean Fried Chicken, Southern Fried Chicken and More

CHILLI POWDER

Chillies or chilli peppers – varieties of the berry-fruit from the genus Capsicum – are so ubiquitous here in Southeast Asia that it’s easy to forget that they were native to South and Central America.

First cultivated in Mexico, chilli peppers travelled with Portuguese traders in the 1600s to Asia, Europe, Africa, and beyond via what became known as the Columbian Exchange. Now China produces half of the world’s chilli peppers.

Chilli powder here in Southeast Asia and in our homeland Australia is different to chilli powder in the USA, which is often combined with other spices to create what’s generally labelled a chilli seasoning or chilli powder blend.

The chilli powder we buy here is finely ground dried chilli peppers. Chilli powder pulverised from mild chillies will add warmth to a dish, while chilli powder pounded from hot chillies will make for a spicy-hot dish. Think: Korean buldak or ‘fire chicken’.

Chilli powder is used in so many cuisines, from Indian food and Portuguese food to Mexican food and Tex-Mex food. It’s a key ingredient in my vegetarian bean chilli, white bean chilli, white chicken chilli, and chilli tostadas, and it’s another of our essential spices. LD

Easy Vegetarian Chilli Recipe for Chilli Con Carne Sin Carne (Without Meat) and It’s Vegan Too

ONION POWDER

Onion powder takes me right back to my childhood. When I was a kid, my mother used to sprinkle onion powder on Jatz biscuits topped with cheese and tomato. I had forgotten about that for years until I got hold of the recipe for Belles Hot Chicken (link above), Australian chef Morgan McGlone’s version of the spicy American Southern-style fried chicken.

The recipe calls for both onion powder and garlic powder, which are used liberally in the seasoned flour coating for the raw chicken as well as the spicy seasoning for the fried chicken. Like garlic powder, I now use onion powder in the same way – when you want the flavour of onion, but you don’t necessarily want to bite into pieces of onion.

We use onion powder in many of the same recipes that we garlic powder in, from fried chicken to meatballs and dumpling fillings. Lara also loves to use onion powder in purees, soups and stews, sometimes in addition to using onions. We like our flavours intense here.

So what about onion powder, is it a spice or seasoning? Well, like garlic powder, onion powder is pounded dehydrated onion, and an onion is a bulb or lower stem of a flowering plant, so while it often gets referred to as a seasoning, it’s a spice alright – and it’s another of our essential spices.

Lara’s homemade French onion dip recipe makes a rich, creamy caramelised onion dip that will take you back in time to the dips you helped your mum make for backyard barbecues in the Seventies. Her French onion dip recipe doesn’t need onion powder, but add it and see what a difference it makes.

A storage tip: as with garlic powder, above, heat and humidity affect onion powder, so unless you live in a cool dry climate, onion powder and garlic powder should both live in the driest part of your fridge, as they can turn to stone when left out in moist hot conditions. TC

Homemade French Onion Dip Recipe for a Rich Caramelised Onion Dip from Scratch and a Trip Back in Time

CHILLI FLAKES

Chilli flakes are another one of our essential spices for everyday cooking. We love chilli flakes so much and use them so often that we buy chilli flakes in bulk from the local markets here in Siem Reap.

Also called red pepper flakes and crushed red peppers, chilli flakes are made from pounding dried red chillies until they’re broken down but not pulverising them as you do to create chilli powder. Generally made from small or medium sized dried red chillies, for me they’re best when there are chilli seeds in the mix to really intensify the heat.

With chilli flakes, you can identify the crushed dried skin of the dried red chilli peppers, as well as the chilli pepper seeds, which are incorporated into the more fiery chilli flakes. If you’re looking for milder chilli flakes, then look for seedless chilli flakes.

We have a few types of chilli flakes on our spice trolley, including milder Cambodian chilli flakes from the market which are a pinkish-red colour and a Thai brand of chilli flakes which are fire-truck red and so crazy-hot, they must have been made from the tiny fiery Thai red chilli peppers called birds-eye chillies, which chef David Thompson calls ‘scuds’.

For me, chilli flakes are a secret weapon that we use in everything from burger patties to spicy pasta sauces. We sprinkle chilli flakes on fried eggs, noodles, fried rice dishes, even vegetable sides.

We also use dried chilli flakes, along with chilli powder and Sichuan peppercorns to make chilli oil which we love to drizzle onto rice congee and noodle dishes, and drown homemade wontons in. As we can’t source the famously fiery Calabrian peperoncino here, Lara uses Southeast Asian chilli flakes in her spicy Italian sausage pasta recipe, below. TC

Spicy Italian Sausage Pasta Recipe from Calabria in Southern Italy

GROUND CORIANDER

The leaves of fresh coriander (botanical name: coriandrum sativum), also called cilantro, have lovely floral, herbaceous, green notes, while ground coriander, which comes from dried coriander fruit and seeds (not dried coriander leaves) pounded to a fine powder, is citrusy, earthy, woody, and warming.

Coriander is native to the Mediterranean and Middle East, with some of the oldest evidence found in The Levant and Egypt. The culinary use of coriander dates back to 5000 B.C, with one of the first known use of coriander being by the Romans to flavour bread.

Coriander travelled from Europe to the Americas and from the Middle East via Persia to India, China and Southeast Asia, where both ground coriander and the leaves and roots of fresh coriander are used widely in cooking.

We actually use fresh coriander as a herb more than we use ground coriander seeds as a spice, generously sprinkling coriander leaves on everything from Southeast Asian salads and curries to Mexican tacos and tostadas.

We use fresh coriander so often that we have a couple of pots of coriander growing at different stages on our balcony, so when one pot is just about done, the other plant is beginning to flourish and ready to use. But ground coriander still has its place in our kitchen and is one of our essential spices for everyday cooking.

These days coriander is grown right around the world and is used in cuisines on all continents. Dried coriander is so essential to our cooking that we have scores of recipes that include ground coriander, including many of our best curry recipes, such as Thailand’s Massaman curry and South Africa’s Cape Malay chicken curry. TC

Cape Malay Chicken Curry Recipe for a Richly Spiced Curry from Cape Town, South Africa

CUMIN

Ground cumin (botanical name: cuminum cyminum) is the dried seeds (which are technically a fruit), which are pounded into a fine powder. We also keep cumin seeds, which are used a lot in Indian cooking. Many curry recipes will call for cumin seeds to be toasted.

Cumin is a close companion of ground coriander. You’ll see the two spices used alongside each other in countless recipes in all kinds of cuisines – Middle Eastern, Central Asian, Indian, Chinese, Southeast Asian, Mexican, and more.

Cumin is ancient. Evidence of cumin was also found in Egypt’s pyramids, suggesting it was used 5,000 years ago while the word ‘cumin’ comes from ‘gamun’, the Sumerian name for the spice, Sumerian being the first written language, with ganum appearing in the cuneiform script more than 4,000 years ago.

Tremendously popular in ancient Mesopotamia, present-day Iraq, cumin is present in the world’s oldest collection of recipes, dating to 1750 BC, which feature loads of cumin and other spices, along with plenty of garlic and onions.

Cumin was used as both an ingredient and condiment, as it still is in the Middle East, featuring in the baharat spice mix and in the Middle East’s best-known condiment, dukkah or duqqa, the Egyptian spice and nut mix that became massively popular in Australia in the 1990s. (More about that fascinating story in our dukkah recipe post.)

Cumin also featured heavily in recipes in the 4th century Roman cookbook by Apicius, which lists cumin as a kitchen pantry essential. It was so valued in medieval Europe that rents could be paid in cumin!

When chillies were travelling to Europe and Asia during the Columbian Exchange, cumin was returning on those same galleons to the Americas, where it became incorporated into everything from Mexican cooking to the food of New Mexico, the American southwest, and Texas. Which explains why chilli con carne and so many Tex-Mex chillies include cumin.

We use cumin in our kofta kebabs and meatballs and in chillies and curries, such as this Burmese curry recipe – but two of my favourite cumin-driven recipes is this traditional chebureki recipe for enormous Crimean Tartar fried pastries stuffed with cumin-flavoured minced beef and onions, and my even spicier smaller turnover-size recipe for mini chebureki. LD

Spicy Ground Beef Turnovers Recipe for Mini Chebureki, Cumin Spiced Fried Minced Beef Pastries

TURMERIC

Native to India and cultivated in South Asia and Southeast Asia, turmeric (botanical name: Curcuma longa) is an orange-coloured rhizome and a member of the ginger family, Zingiberaceae. Earthy, woody and musky, the spice turmeric powder or ground turmeric is produced from pounding and grinding the dried rhizome.

While Turmeric has become very fashionable in recent years, turmeric has been used in India for 4,000 years as an Ayurvedic traditional medicine. Turmeric contains curcumin, an antioxidant with anti-inflammatory properties that can help relieve depression and anxiety.

In Buddhist Asia, turmeric was long used to dye the orange robes of monks. As a cooking ingredient, both fresh turmeric and pounded dried turmeric have been used in the cuisines of India, South Asia and Southeast Asia for at least 2,000 years. It’s turmeric that gives spice pastes and curries their yellow colour.

While we use fresh turmeric a lot in the Southeast Asian food we cook, we use turmeric powder enough to make it one of our essential spices. One of my favourite recipes with dried turmeric makes the crispy yellow crêpes filled with savoury minced pork and bean sprouts that are called banh xeo in Vietnam and banh chao in Cambodia; ground turmeric goes in the batter.

Terence uses turmeric powder in the Indian Weekend Eggs dishes he makes, including an egg bhurji recipe for the classic Indian spicy scrambled eggs with a little twist courtesy of a different technique that Terence uses for soft scrambled eggs. Egg bhurji is spicier than akoori (or akuri), the Parsi egg dish to which it’s often compared. A bit more complex, it contains turmeric, cumin and garam masala.

This traditional Burmese egg curry recipe makes a Myanmar curry shop staple that’s typically eaten for breakfast. The boiled eggs are peeled and deep fried in turmeric until golden, which is why you’ll also see this called a Burmese golden egg curry recipe in some Burmese cookbooks. The eggs are served in a spicy tomato and onion-based curry.

One of my favourite recipes with dried turmeric is this chickpea curry recipe for a comforting Punjabi chole from Indian Cooking Class. Chole are ‘chickpeas’ and this richly spiced chickpea stew is a beloved dish of Punjabi cuisine of Punjab, a region straddling Northern India and Pakistan. We have lots more recipes with turmeric, both ground turmeric and fresh turmeric. LD

Chickpea Curry Recipe for Punjabi Chole from Indian Cooking Class by Christine Manfield

PAPRIKA

Fruity, earthy, sweet, and mildly-spiced, ground paprika (botanical name: Capsicum annum) may come from the chilli pepper plant, and be in the same family as the spicier Mexican habanero and Southeast Asian bird’s eye chilli, yet paprika is much more mellow than its fiery cousins.

This is because there are so many varieties of chilli peppers, which vary in degrees of pungency, thanks to the amount of capsaicin in the chilli peppers. The intensity of the heat, the capsaicinoid content, is measured in Scoville heat units (SHU).

Paprika comes from the berry (technically the fruit) of a chilli pepper called the capsicum or bell pepper, which is the mildest chilli pepper with an SHU of zero, while the habanero and bird’s eye chillies have a range of 100,000 to 350,000 SHU. This is because the capsicum is the only chilli pepper that doesn’t contain capsaicin.

Whereas the habanero and bird’s eye chilli bring heat to a dish, paprika adds warmth. You would add habanero chillies to a chilli con carne and bird’s eye chillies to Southeast Asian curries, whereas ground paprika is more suited to gently spiced soups and stews.

Capsicums also travelled with Christopher Columbus in the late 1500s from Central America to Europe, where Spanish monks are said to have been some of the first to dry the bell-shaped peppers by hanging them up in smokehouses, then grinding them – which explains why some ground paprika is smokier rather than sweet.

The Ottoman Turks also used paprika and are credited with introducing paprika to Hungary in the 1800s. Some of the most delicious paprika we’ve tasted was in the splendid main market hall of Budapest, the capital of Hungary, which is the country we mostly associate with paprika, the national dish being the paprika-driven goulash.

One of my favourite recipes with paprika is an authentic Moroccan chickpea soup that Terence learnt to make in Marrakech many years ago, below. It makes a warming, hearty bowl of soup that’s a meal in itself – particularly when served with some oven-fresh flatbread. Ground cumin and chilli flakes also go in the soup, but it’s the ground paprika that really stands out for me.

I also sprinkle paprika on fried eggs, just as I do chilli powder and chilli flakes, but I opt for ground paprika when I want a more gentle spice, such as for this smoked salmon dip with salty capers, dill pickles, purple shallots, a pinch of paprika, and plenty of fresh perfumed dill.

Or this dish of slow fried eggs atop dill cream cheese, spread onto slices of toasted sourdough, sprinkled with paprika, cracked pepper and sea salt. Served with crunchy gherkins and crisp radishes, it’s inspired by my late grandfather Ivan’s daily breakfast. LD.

Authentic Moroccan Chickpea Soup Recipe Straight from a Marrakech Kitchen

ALLSPICE

Allspice (botanical name: pimenta dioica) is another one my essential spices. It was one of the spices that travelled from the Caribbean to Europe in 1494 with Christopher Columbus, who brought it from Jamaica. Apparently Columbus thought the dried allspice berries were peppercorns – which is how it got the Spanish name ‘pimenta’ and is also called ‘Jamaican pepper’.

Native to Central America, the Mayans used allspice in 2000 BC for embalming, arthritis and food flavouring; they added it to chocolate. Embalming is just one example of the preservation qualities of allspice. The Jamaican use it in their jerk seasoning, and it also gets widely used in pickling.

Mexicans use allspice in escabeche or pickled vegetables and after allspice arrived in Europe it would get used in everything from poached fruits and puddings to pickled raw fish. The Scandinavians and Russians mix allspice with mustard seeds to pickle herrings and make dill pickles aka gherkins (pickled cucumbers).

Allspice is one of those spices that are just as suited to savoury as much as sweet dishes. It’s all-at-once aromatic, warming, peppery, floral, fruity, sweet, and quintessentially spicy, in the same way that star anise, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, and nutmeg are. In fact, allspice is a wonderful companion to all of those spices.

I love adding allspice to meaty soups, such as borscht, as well as to hearty stews, especially beef stews, and my Russian beef stew, solyanka. But one of my favourite dishes to use allspice in is beef Stroganoff. That’s not one of my innovations either. Allspice features in the earliest documented Russian beef Stroganoff recipe by Elena Molokhovets in A Gift to Young Housewives dating to 1861. More of my Stroganoff recipes here. LD

Authentic Russian Beef Stroganoff Recipe for a Retro Classic from a Saint Petersburg Palace Kitchen

CURRY POWDER

Curry powder is the odd one out here as it’s a spice blend rather than an individual spice, and we’re going to share our essential spice blends in another post, however, when we decided to compile our 10 essential spices, the spices we use most frequently, we realised curry powder was one of them.

A confession, though: until we moved to Southeast Asia more than a decade ago, I never used to like curry powder – apart from in curried egg sandwiches, which my dad loved to make when I was a kid. Lara also has fond memories of her dad making curry egg sandwiches too. It must be an Australian dad thing.

Our fathers both used Keen’s Traditional Curry Powder, in its iconic tin. Keen’s was a brand established in Tasmania, Australia, and has long been Australia’s most popular curry powder. Keen’s Traditional Curry Powder is a mix of turmeric, coriander, salt, fenugreek, black pepper, chilli, rice flour, allspice, and celery.

These days, we regularly use store-bought curry powder as it’s used a lot in Asian and Southeast Asian cooking. We’ll use Thai curry powder for Thai dishes, Vietnamese curry powder for Vietnamese recipes, Japanese curry powder for Japanese recipes (we use S&B brand), etc. Although for Burmese dishes, we blend our own Burmese curry powder.

One of our favourite store-bought curry powders is a Thai curry powder by a Thai brand called Nguan Soon, which Thailand’s Keen’s curry powder and has been a household name in Thailand since the 1950s.

I still enjoy blending curry powders. In my favourite Burmese cookbook, Cook and Entertain the Burmese Way, published in 1978, author Mi Mi Khaing writes that every Burmese woman makes their own blends of curry powder and she includes a recipe for her own homemade curry powder blend, which I’ve tweaked a little, but I also share her original curry powder.

So why use store-bought curry powders instead of blending our own spice mixes? Convenience and they just taste so good. One of my favourite recipes with Thai curry powder is a Southern Thai chicken and rice recipe for khao mok gai, which chicken cooked in a spicy curry-like gravy, served with turmeric rice and crispy fried shallots.

Aside from using Southeast Asian curry powders in the dry-spiced curries they’re intended for, we still love our curried egg sandwiches. Although my curried egg sangers are very different to those our dads made! More of our best recipes with curry powder here. TC

Do you use spices in your cooking? Are your ten essential spices the same as our must-use spices? If not, what are your favourite spices? Please let us know in the comments below.