Garam masala

Stirred in off the heat; the sauce changes character in about ten seconds.

Lactic acid opens the meat, the blend perfumes it from the outside in.

Warm phenols against lanolin fat, added last so the cardamom survives.

Warm spice against a curd with no flavour of its own. The whole system.

Browned to a paste first; the blend goes on top of that sweetness, not into it.

Acid lifts the cardamom and keeps the clove from turning anaesthetic.

The whole blend is fat-soluble. Water gets you dust, ghee gets you aroma.

Chana masala is blend plus acid; everything else in the pot is texture.

Starch has no aroma at all, so the blend is the entire flavour of the dish.

Fat holds the volatiles long enough for the sauce to survive reheating.

Flat pulse plus warm blend; add it at the end or it cooks down to nothing.

Roasted sulfur takes clove and cardamom the way it takes nothing else.

Green leaf and warm blend, both added last, for exactly opposite reasons.

Squash sugar with warm pepper on it, which is a better pie than the usual.

Warm spice blankets the barnyard note without pretending it is absent.

Warm spice at the end, off the heat. Cooked in, it turns to dust.

Warm phenols on malic acid; mixed spice with more edge and less sugar.

Cardamom and clove lift cocoa the way chilli does, without the burn.

Roast on roast: toast the blend, grind it with the beans, and it doubles.