Curry Powder

Making this would have seemed impossible to me a week ago. So I was planning to make the pumpkin chowder and I had everything in the recipe on hand except curry powder. My husband was out doing some errands, so I asked him to pick some up at the store for me. Being a good participant in this game he called me from the store to tell me that curry powder had many ingredients. This hadn't really occurred to me. Of course there isn't a curry plant that gets ground up and put into jars, but on pain of death I would not have been able to tell you what went into making curry, and I would definitely have assumed it would be a bunch of exotic spices that I hadn't even heard of. But as he listed ingredients from the back of the jar I realized that we had almost everything here. So in order to get some proportions, I did a search of Homemade Curry Powder and found a few different recipes. Below is what I ended up doing. It is mostly based on the recipe at mealsmatter.org, but I made some substitions with ingredients from other recipes for ingredients I didn't have.

3 tablespoons Hungarian paprika

2 tsp Ground cumin

2 tsp Ground fennel seed

2 tsp Ground fenugreek

2 tsp Ground red pepper

1 tablespoon Ground coriander

1 tablespoon Ground tumeric

1/2 tsp Ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp Ground cloves

I had to get my mortar and pestel out for the fennel seeds, cloves and coriander, as I only had them whole, so my curry powder is not entirely a powder, it's a little more "rustic". And the most fun element is the fenugreek. This is an herb I had never heard of until my son was born 10 months ago. It is used to aid in milk production in nursing mothers. I happened to have some in capsule form from my early nursing days. So I pulled apart a few capsules and poured the powder into the mix. I thought this was particularly clever.

I think this curry turned out great, and I have about a half cup left, so I am excited to find another use for it.