I first dabbled in creating a Jamaican curry blend during high school, working with very minimal spices from my mom's pantry, which basically meant my Jamaican curry blend tasted more like menudo seasoning with lots of ginger. I've since fine tuned my ratios, and now it's one of my favorite blends to use on roasted vegetables, blended into yogurt as a sauce, or used in coconut curries with jackfruit and sweet potatoes. It's a great digestive and anti-inflammatory and it's uses are endless! After making more, I ended up using it with some steamed Romanesco broccoli from the farmers market, serving it up with rice and peas. My goldendoodle was very curious about the tray of market produce!
I chose to not write out a formal recipe for this, but rather show you how I did, which is the best way for me to learn: watching someone else do it.
However, here are some tips:
- Toast whole spices gently in a pan for a minute or so before grinding them. This freshens them up and brings out their natural oils. After I was done grinding the whole spices, I simply added the turmeric etc. and mixed it all together in my molcajete. See next tip.
- I used my molcajete (volcanic rock mortar and pestle) to grind the whole spices, but you could easily use a coffee grinder used solely for spices.
- Use a paper bag to dump your spice blend onto after combining it. You can funnel it easily into a small jar this way unless you have a wide mouth funnel. But I like to use the paper bag :)
