Coffee grinder (mill, food processor, blender)
These kitchen
appliances are hard to replace when the mix requires fine grinding or powder. Besides, blender is useful when you need to grind fresh ingredients for mixing them with dry ingredients for making paste. All you need to do is put the spice you need into a blender and grind it to the required substance. Use a particular blender designed only for grinding spices. By no means use the same appliance to grind coffee, spices and other products. I recommend that you use a blender or grinder for fine grinding of spices with a flat double blade made of stainless steel. Do not grind the whole spices with nozzles consisting of several blades, especially those located at different angles. If you try to use this kind of nozzle you will not be able to get fine powder and just get exhausted with attempts instead.
Thick-walled frying pan
Many recipes in this book require preheating, and even roasting grains and seeds sometimes. As I mentioned before, warming up helps to effuse aroma and to release essential oils from spices. This process brightens the taste of spices as well as the whole dish. In some cases, it is allowed to heat several ingredients at once, in other cases, the spices should be heated one by one. It is necessary to keep in mind that after heating the seeds and grains should be put into a separate bowl, otherwise the spices will simply burn, since the frying pan, as you understand, retains heat for a while even after you have removed it from the fire. Therefore, as soon as you sense the aroma rising you should immediately put spices into a bowl and cool them down. If there are many different kinds of whole species in a recipe that require preheating, then you need to sort them by size and warm them up separately. Do not warm up the seeds and grains of different sizes together as there is a chance to overdevelop smaller ones or not to activate essential oils that will, in its turn, not let the flavor open at its fullest. Also, the frying pan will help you to roast fresh ingredients for adding them into a spicy paste or sauce later.
Containers for storing
The best container for storing spices, spicy pastes and mixes is a glass jar with a locking lid. You can buy as a whole set of these jars or buy them separately of different sizes.
Nutmeg grater
A special miniature grater designed for grating a specific quantity of nutmeg. If you don't have an opportunity to purchase nutmeg grater, you can take usual grater for this purpose. Nutmeg grater is also useful when you need to grate lemon peel, ginger, garlic and even chili.
Knife and cutting board
A knife for cutting fresh ingredients should always be well sharpened. I recommend two knives for such purposes: one small to easily peel ginger, garlic and onions; and wide chef's knife of high quality to easily shred fresh ingredients and chop different herbs. You might also want to get a sharpener to take care of your knife sharpness any time you need it. The cutting board is necessary for any manipulations with the knife.
Garlic press
It will help you to quickly crush garlic cloves and sometimes ginger, if necessary.
Kitchen Scales
I strongly recommend that you get a small, and yet, ultra-accurate kitchen scales. They are irreplaceable in those cases when it is required to add an exact amount of ingredient.
PREPARATION OF INGREDIENTS FOR SPICE BLENDS
Sometimes, fresh ingredients such as garlic, ginger, galangal and chili pepper are grated in a grater before being added to the paste. Grater is also very useful for grinding nutmeg and removing the peel from citrus fruits.
Pounding.
Fresh ingredients with a soft texture, such as lemongrass, ginger, galangal and some others are often pounded with the back of the knife (spine) before cooking to release their aroma. Such a technique is used saturate a certain spicy combination with the aroma and flavors of the ingredients listed above just before removing them.
Cutting fresh ingredients.
This method is used for preparing fresh ingredients for making paste out of them. It consists in slicing spices into sticks or small cubes to intensify an aroma of fresh spices such as lime leaves, ginger, chili and lemongrass. Lime leaves are cut into small strips; the chili pepper is cut along into two parts and, after removing the seeds, it can be cut in any form; the white part of the lemongrass after, cutting the outer layer, is cut into rings. A large root of ginger or galangal is cut in following way: cut off a piece of necessary size, peel and cut across the fibers (in a form of thin slices, strips or small cubes). In addition to these ingredients, this method is used to prepare various herbs for paste preparation.
Fresh herbs processing.
This is quite an easy process. Foremost, provide yourself with fresh and healthy herbs in full blossom. You need to rinse them in a cold water and dry with a paper towel. Then tie them up into loose bundles and hang them in a well-ventilated place. On the average, drying process takes seven days. Do not dry herbs under open sun or indoors where there is a lot of heat. This can ruin herbs because excessive heat can cause fading of essential oils. Drying process is over when the herbs become breakable and start chirring. At this point, you will have to separate leaves from stems and put them into container for storing. You can crush the leaves if necessary by rubbing them between your palms or using a rolling pin over foil or parchment.