spices & herbs

Black pepper has been known as king of spices. It can be found in every dining room, irrespective of country, religion and financial status. However, there are marked differences in the pepper grown in Brazil, Indonesia, India, Malaysia and Vietnam. People around the world love little spiciness in their food. Black pepper is used in various cuisines, cheese, chips, drinks etc. Black Pepper can not be grown in Europe, Russia, China and North America due to weather and soil conditions. Most of the black pepper in the western world is imported from above mentioned countries. It is so common a product that futures are sold in the stock market. Pepper Farmers call it, “Black Gold”, since it can be stored for long period of time and can be sold worldwide.The popular saying of,  ”money does not grow on trees”, does not apply to pepper, cinnamon and nutmeg. These are some of the most expensive spices in the world for centuries.  These products have colonized countries and wars have been fought. Columbus was looking for pepper and other spices when he arrived in America. British colonized India for pepper trade for a century. Following map shows the map location of Tellicherry region in Kerala, India.

Indus Organics Jumbo Black Peppercorn

Jumbo Peppercorns are the largest ripe berries. These fully mature berries have very unique taste compared to ordinary pepper. We steam sterilize the Jumbo berries for high purity. This removes some of the softer outer skin of the ripe berries. These berries before steam sterilization are more than 5.5 mm in diameter which makes them the largest black pepper in the world. Click here to buy them online

Indus Organics Jumbo Pepper

Indus Organic Tellicherry Pepper  

Indus Organics Tellicherry Special Extra Bold (TGSEB) Peppercorn are very high quality peppercorns grown in southern India. These mature and ripe berries have unique taste and aroma. These peppers are steam sterilized to obtain high purity and low microbial. Steam sterilization of pepper reduces the size of fully ripe berries. Lot of companies sell lower grade pepper with large size. These peppers are not steam sterilized. Devil is in the details. Click here to buy them online

Indus Organics Tellicherry Pepper

Middle eastern food is spicy and new to western world. However, there are variety of mouth watering dishes for vegetarian as well as non-vegetarians. A very commonly used spice blend in almost every home is called Baharat. I have seen this blend in many middle eastern super markets and always wondered about it. I started reading about Iraqi and middle eastern cooking and came across a basic ingredient list with ratios for making baharat. This spice blend has many variations just like curry powder and garam masala in Indian cooking.

Baharat is a plural of bahar and it represents a mixture of wide variety of spices. Bahar is an Arabic word originally used for Black pepper. Baharat varies from region to region, tribe to tribe and even family to family. In middle east, every kitchen has a good selection of spices to make different dishes. Different type of mixture blend is prepared for cooking meat, vegetables, lentils. Most of the spices in middle east are imported from India and the subcontinent.  Town of Basra in Iraq is famous for spice blends especially for dates.

You can make a Baharat for yourself  by mixing following ingredient proportions. One can experiment with quantities to come up with his/her own Baharat.

You can make a 1 lb of Baharat using the following ingredients.  You can choose whole or powder form of spices.

1) Indus Organics Malabar Black Pepper Powder, 2 oz

2) Indus Organic Paprika Powder, 2 oz

3) Indus Organics Cumin Powder, 2 oz

4) Indus Organics Turmeric Powder, 2 oz

5) Indus Organics Coriander Seed/Powder, 2 oz

6) Indus Organics Gourmet Cloves, 5 tbsp

7) Indus Organics Ceylon Cinnamon Powder, 5 tbsp

8) Indus Organics Nutmeg Powder, 5 tbsp

9) Indus Organics Premium Cardamom Pods, 5 tbsp

10) Indus Organics Ginger Powder, 1 tbsp

11) Ground Dried Limes, 5 tbsp

Mixing these ingredients will make a tasteful Baharat spice blend than you won’t find in typical Middle Eastern grocery store. You can buy a pre-mixed garam masala spice blend that is very similar to Iraqi Baharat.

** Above Recipe for Baharat is taken from The Iraqi Cookbook by Lamees Ibrahim.