Shahi Garam Masala Powder

Few days back I had posted the recipe of Basic Punjabi Garam Masala which is used in daily cooking. Today I shall share the recipe of Shahi Garam Masala which is used for Exotic and Gourmet Indian cooking. It is used both in vegetarian and non vegetarian dishes like, Kebab and Korma all Mughlai dishes . It can be used to marinate meat for Biryanis also. If you have this ready masala, you need not prepare separate masalas for Biryani. The ingredients almost are same for Shahi and Biryani masalas however, the ratio may be different for Hyderabadi, Lukhnow, Kolkata or Southern Biryanis with few other additional spices. Those I will share shortly.

Although packated Shahi masalas are available in markets but the aroma of home grinded masalas are icomparable. It is always advised to grind these masalas in smaller quantity of 40 to 50 gms and store in a glass jar so that it is consumed before the freshness is lost.

2 ingredients in the list was not readily available in my spice box so have not shown in picture. If you get it add it too.

Final yield- 40 gms.

Ingredients:

Fennel seeds 1tspn
Cumin Seeds 1tspn
Coriander seeds 2tspn
Sha Jeera (caraway seeds) 2/3^rd tspn
Black pepper corn 1 tspn
Kebab Chini/all spice berries 2/3^rd tspn
Star anise 2
Green Cardamom 10
Black Cardamom 2
Whole dry Red Chili 2-3
Grated Nutmeg 1
Mace Powder 2tspn
Cinnamon Powder 1 tspn
Clove powder 1 tspn
Patthar ke phool 1 tspn
Dry Rose petals 1 tspn(optional)
Yellow chili powder 1 tspn
Dry ginger powder 1 tspn
Bay leaf 2

All the above ingredients contain moisture which is not visible. So if we grind these without drying the moisture, it may not get grinded properly and leave lumps. Traditionally all these ingredients were dried naturally under sun. There used to be big angaan in every house and the females remained busy whole afternoon sun drying whole masalas, wadiya, pickles. Those were the days……. Now in flats one hardly gets the sunlight so no chances of getting sundried masalas.

So for drying up the ingredients it is best to heat the griddle high and then switch off the stove. Spread the whole masalas on this griddle and stir for 2-3 mts. Be careful the spices should not change colour or over toasted. That is because roasted spice powder aroma is different and raw/kachha masala aroma is different. We do not want toasted aroma for this garam masalal. I have shared toasted Bengali garam masala powder recipe whose aroma is completely different from this shahi garam masala.

Step I is to heat a griddle and switch off the stove when griddle is heated. Put the hard shell spices like, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, peppercorn, star anees, kabab chini. Stir it for 2 mins and transfer in the grinder and grind.

Step two heat the griddle again and switch off. Put all other spices except powdered one and stir for 2 mins. Transfer it in the same grinder and grind it again till powdered.