Turmeric

Turmeric - a spice that features high on any Cape cook's shopping list!  It's almost a standard ingredient in Cape cuisine, and in this house I go through heaps of it every year!  This powder has a very delicate earthy, bitter, peppery flavour, and other than that, it adds a yellow colour to those typical Cape Malay dishes that we love so much!  Until two Saturdays ago I never really stopped to think where this lovely, bright yellow powder came from...

Rowena works at the Salt River Market during the week as well as the Neighbourhood Goods Market on weekends.  She is a well of information, and when I excitedly looked at what I thought to be Jerusalem artichokes a few Saturdays ago, she was there to correct me.  What I was looking at was the fresh root from which the powder is made (see the yellow colour on the root below?)

 

This plant is part of the ginger family that not only gets used in curries, but it is used to impart colour to things like mustard condiments.  In fact, so prominent a spice is it that it is a standard feature in most commercial curry powders.  Rowena says that it is a delight to use fresh, but must be handled with great care because as soon the rhizomes are cut, they can seriously stain fingers, aprons, even cutting boards and knives.  The way to do it is to grate them while wearing disposable kitchen gloves, and to use fresh turmeric in long-cooking dishes like dals, curries and moist vegetables to give the fresh product time to do its magic.

Another idea is to fry fresh turmeric with grated fresh ginger in any recipes that ask for powdered turmeric, and one can easily use it in double quantities.  In other words, if a recipe calls for ½ teaspoon powdered turmeric, use 1 teaspoon of the fresh.  Used fresh, its slightly bitter and pungent flavour is unsurpassable, I believe.  I shall be trying this out on the weekend!

"Sophia Lindop" - more "easy recipe" ideas!