The benefits of tidy spice drawer
Sorting, reorganizing the contents can lead to trying new recipes or old favourites
I’d love to have the time back that I’ve spent looking for things.
Possessing useful things is helpful until you lose track or cannot find something you know that you have. At that point, frustration ensues.
Last week, I spent an afternoon sorting and reorganizing the contents of my spice drawers to prevent some of that frustration.
I had spices and herbs stashed in bottles of many sizes and shapes, plastic bags, envelopes and tins, arranged in no particular order. Most were labelled in some way, but some of the labels weren’t effective. Because they’re stored in a drawer, they need to have a label on top so that I can find what I want without lifting and examining all the containers.
How did things get so messy? The main cause is procrastination. When I buy a little bag or a package of a required spice at the bulk food store, there is usually a bit left after I use the amount the recipe calls for. Ideally, I’d put that remaining bit into a spice bottle and label it immediately, but alas, things are not always ideal.
“I’ll do it later,” I tell myself. Often, it’s much later.
My task last week was to make this collection of herbs and spices useable. I gathered extra spice bottles, sheets of self-adhesive labels, scissors and a pen, a recycling basket for discarded bags and bottles and a waste can. Then everything had to come out of the drawers.
First, I transferred anything stored in a plastic bag into a glass bottle and, when possible, I used a bottle with the standard spice bottle size and shape. Not everything would fit into such a bottle; some bulky items, such as bay leaves needed to be in larger bottles.
Next, I attached labels to the tops of all bottles, and sorted them by size, with the standard sized ones in one group, and the odd-sized ones in another.
I’m almost embarrassed to state the next step, as I have seen others laughed at mercilessly for doing so: I sorted the spices alphabetically.
There was room in one drawer for all the standard spice bottles, boxes of table salt and pickling salt and whole and ground black pepper. The other drawer houses odd-sized bottles and other items like dried mushrooms, plain gelatin, flavour extracts for baking, food colouring and prepared seasoning mixes attached to recipe cards.
After all that effort, I like to open the drawers just to admire how orderly the contents are.
Now that I’ve seen what I have, I am inspired to use some of the forgotten spices. This recipe uses a little of a lot of spices. We enjoyed it in the past, and it’s on the menu again.
Pineapple Chicken
Adapted from Mazurek, Crystle: The Curry Original Cookbook, General Store Publishing House, Renfrew, Ont., 2011
• 75 mL (5 tbsp) oil
• 250 mL (1 cup) diced onion
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 2 bay leaves
• 2-3 cardamom pods
• 10 mL (2 tsp) garlic-ginger paste (recipe follows)
• Dash salt
• 10 mL (2 tsp) turmeric powder
• 10 mL (2 tsp) cumin powder
• 2 mL (½ tsp) curry powder
• 1 mL (¼ tsp) garam masala
• 1 mL (¼ tsp) cayenne pepper
• 60 mL (4 tbsp) tomato paste
• 5 mL (1 tsp) yogurt
• 4 breasts of boneless chicken, cut into cubes (approx. 175 g/6 oz each)
• 750 mL (3 cups) water
• 250 mL (1 can) pineapple tidbits
• 5 mL (1 tsp) cilantro, cleaned and chopped Heat oil over medium heat and add onion. Add cinnamon, bay leaves and cardamom pods and continue stirring gently. When onion is translucent, add garlicginger paste, salt, turmeric, cumin, curry powder, garam masala, cayenne pepper, tomato paste and yogurt and continue stirring.
Add chicken and water and cook over medium heat for 10-15 minutes, until chicken is cooked.
Add pineapple and continue cooking for 5 more minutes.
Remove the bay leaves and cinnamon stick and add cilantro.
Serve.
4-6 portions
Garlic-Ginger Paste
From Mazurek, Crystle: The Curry Original Cookbook, General Store Publishing House, Renfrew, Ont., 2011.
• 1 5-cm/2-inch piece of ginger, unpeeled
• 1 bulb garlic
• 30 mL (2 tbsp) water
Wash and chop ginger. Peel garlic. Place all in blender. Add water and blend until it forms a paste. Store, refrigerated, for up to one week.