Hi everyone,

Just wondering which herbs and spices are your favourites, the ones you use all the time and would hate to be without?

Mine are - sea salt, black pepper, cumin, coriander, chilli flakes, garam masala, sage, rosemary, cinnamon, chipotle chillies, paprika, nutmeg, tumeric, fenugreek, cloves, galangal, ginger, allspice, cardamom, thyme, fresh basil and garlic.

Think they're the basics, how about you?

hi sam,

my essentials of late are sea salt & black pepper (my god i wish i had a decent grinder tho!), oregano, and chilli powder.... i only ever use fresh garlic (hence i've started growing my own!)

think i have about 50 various jars in the cupboard & on the rack, and have recently discovered, in Tesco, on the spice shelf, they sell a 31g pot of turmeric for around £1.26, but one the Asian Groceries shelf, is a 100g packet of it for 45p! how shocking is that??

sorry, off on a tangent lol...

Hey!

I buy a lot of spices from Asian grocers or on the "Asian" shelf in the supermarket as they ARE cheaper than the jars in the normal herbs & spices section, and I get through lots of cumin (ground to a powder AND the seeds) chilli powder, garam masala, black peppercorns, tumeric etc

Off the top of my head here are the spices and herbs I always have in the kitchen:

Chilli powder
Chilli flakes
Paprika
Smoked Paprika
Cayenne Pepper
Cinnamon sticks
Ground cinnamon
Cumin powder
Cumin seeds
Tumeric
Garam Masala
Corinader seeds
Ground corinander
Ground Ginger
Fenugreek
Fennel seeds
Caraway seeds
Mustard seeds
Medium Madras Curry Powder (I only use this in singapore noodles, never in "indian" curries)
Chinese Five Spice

Dried herbs for when I can't get hold of the fresh stuff:
Rosemary
Thyme
Oregano
Marjoram

Hi,

Ikwym about the difference in prices - it's the same for dried pulses and some tinned things like chickpeas too. I count myself really lucky as we have a large Asian population here so there are some fab Asian supermarkets where things are SUPER cheap as well as good deals at the local Asda, Tesco and Sainsburys!

We only use fresh garlic too, it's so easy to grow isn't it, and I love the flowers :-)

Hi

Salt, pepper, chilli, cumin, tumeric, curry powder, nutmeg, paprika, cloves etc etc etc :)