Garam Masala

Pick the spices over and discard any stalks, stones or cardamom pods that have lost their seeds.

Set a heavy dry frying pan over medium-low heat.

Toast the coriander seeds first, on their own, for 2-3 minutes, shaking the pan constantly, until they darken a shade, smell citrusy and the first few start to crack.

Tip them onto a cold plate.

Toast the cumin seeds for 60-90 seconds, until they darken slightly and smell warm and smoky rather than raw.

Tip them onto the plate as well.

Toast the cardamom pods, peppercorns, cassia, cloves and bay leaves together for 45-60 seconds, until the cardamom smells sweet and the bay has gone brittle.

Toast the small seeds and the barks separately, in that order. Cumin is fine and oily and burns in the time coriander takes to warm through, and a mixed pan gives you scorched cumin among under-toasted coriander with no way to pick them apart again.

Take each batch out of the pan the moment it is done. Spices go on toasting in hot metal, and a burnt batch cannot be corrected — bitter is bitter, and it runs through every dish the jar goes into.

Cool everything completely, at least 15 minutes, until the plate is cold to the hand.

Do not grind them warm. Warm spice gives up its oil and pastes the blades or the mortar instead of powdering, and the blend clumps in the jar.

Split the cardamom pods with your fingers or the flat of a knife and keep the small black seeds, discarding the papery husks.

Grind everything in a spice grinder in short bursts, or in a heavy mortar, until it is fine and even.

Sieve the blend and grind whatever stays behind again, which will mostly be splinters of cassia and the veins of the bay.

Grate the nutmeg in at the end, untoasted.

Stir the blend together thoroughly.

Store it in a small airtight jar in a dark cupboard, and write the date on it.

Use it within six to eight weeks, while it still smells of something when the lid comes off.

Add it at the end of cooking rather than the beginning. This is a finishing blend, and the aromatics you have just spent an hour building burn off in a minute of hard frying — half a teaspoon stirred through a dish in its last two minutes does more than a tablespoon at the start.

Stir it into the weeknight red lentil dal in this collection at the moment the tempered spices go in, over a pan of the steamed basmati rice, or into anything braised that has gone flat.