The Dance of Spices: Laxmi Hiremath unlocks the secret to Indian cooking – curry pastes, masalas, tadka and boona

Like so many people who start cooking only when they leave home, the first dishes Laxmi Hiremath made were an attempt to copy those she ate as a child. The founder of Laxmi’s Delights, which sells spiced nuts, flaxseed spreads and prepared curries, writes in the introduction to her cookbook The Dance of Spices (2005), “As a child in India, I had not the slightest interest in learning to cook. During my visits to the kitchen, I sniffed around happily, exclaiming, ‘Boy, does that smell good!’ without ever offering to help or wanting to learn.

“Even when I first came to the United States two decades ago, I did not know anything about cooking. My first night in my home in Columbus, Ohio, in unfamiliar surroundings, I rolled up my sleeves and attempted to replicate what I had seen in my mother’s kitchen so many years earlier.

“I made endless blunders, muddling up recipes and burning breads. After presenting my husband with a series of charred chapati and odd-tasting vegetable dishes, I decided I had to learn from the beginning. I made a conscious effort to master the basics of Indian cooking. Much to my delight and to my husband’s relief, our meals soon improved.

“As I learned to cook, I gauged my progress by comparing my creations to my taste memories of the foods prepared by women who had made a difference in my life. My sambar had to taste as good as my mother’s. My chapati had to be as puffy as my grandmother’s. My pilaf had to be as fluffy as my mother-in-law’s. My spice paste had to be as fragrant as that of our maid.

“When I discovered I could duplicate the flavours of my childhood memories, I rejoiced, once again, in the sensual pleasure of Indian foods, their textures, flavours and aromas. I came to the realisation that cooking good food is a great joy, worthy of intense concentration, careful preparation, and fine discrimination. Learning to prepare great Indian dishes became my top priority.”

Hiremath starts with the basics – the spices that are so essential to Indian cuisine. She writes about curry pastes, made with a blend of pounded spices; masalas – the dry blend of whole and/or ground spices; tadka, or “dance of spices”, made with whole spices; and bhoona, made with ground spices, which are fried to rid them of their raw taste, helping to harmonise the flavours. She also gives recipes for some of her favourite spice blends, including hot and fragrant curry powder, tangy tandoori spice mix, her mother’s heirloom spice blend (which contains more than 30 spices) and chaat masala.

Other recipes include chapatis, home-style naan, sweet spiced mango chutney with pecans, glazed skillet paneer with mushrooms and bell peppers, chicken tikka masala, classic pork vindaloo, skillet egg masala, tandoori cauliflower and broccoli, coconut chutney with zesty oil seasoning, gulab jamuns, and velvety pistachio and chayote pudding.