# Removing/grinding large herbs?



## hungry_dan (Aug 29, 2008)

Hi there, hope someone can help me out with this. I'm cooking for a bunch of people on Sunday, and I intend to cook with an Indian theme. I'll be doing Bombay Potatoes, Spinach Pilau, home-made Poppadoms (also some store-bought Naan breads cos I'm lazy and have never baked in my life) and a Chicken Dopiaza recipe from recipezaar (I did try to include the url in this posts but unfortunately do not have enough posts to do this).  It calls for 3 bay leaves, 8 whole cardomoms, 4 cloves and 8 peppercorns to be sauteed before adding ground spices and then tomatoes & water before the chicken goes in.

My one concern with this recipe is the sheer number of potentially annoying ingredients left in it: as I'll be doubling the amount there could be 6 bay leaves, 16 cardomom pods, 8 cloves and 16 black peppercorns left in the dish if I don't fish them out. The recipe doesn't say anything about removing them, but do you think I could get away with removing them  after adding the ground spices but before adding the tomatoes and water? Otherwise I could have people choking on bay leaves, spitting out cloves and cardomoms and breaking their teeth on peppercorns! I have considered grinding the peppercorns up, but will that significantly affect the flavour of the dish?  If I were to grind the cardomoms up, would I still use the same number or would the extra dissipation, and the fact that it's remaining in the meal mean that I should use less?  Also, I must confess to never having used cloves, would it be alright to grind these also?  If so, 6 bay leaves would be an acceptable hazard!

Cheers in advance for any tips!


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## Andy M. (Aug 29, 2008)

Wrap all the offending items in cheesecloth, tie it off with string and toss it into the pot to cook the whole time with all the ingredients and remove the bundle before serving.


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## hungry_dan (Aug 29, 2008)

Ah good idea, thanks for the tip!  Now to find some cheesecloth


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## quicksilver (Aug 29, 2008)

I'm with Andy's idea also.​


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## Jeekinz (Aug 29, 2008)

They sell little screened pods that do the same thing too.  It's made from stainless steel.  You load it up with your herbs and latch it shut then drop it in whatever your cooking.  I think I saw them either at Linens & Things or Williams Sonoma.


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## GhettoRacingKid (Aug 29, 2008)

Jeekinz and Andy both stole what i was going to say

cheese cloth is kidan expensive but has so many uses 

but they do make a stainless steal mesh ball.  mostly used for tea but if you make a lot of stock or dish that require hrbs and what not to be taken out it works nicely.


I have used a terry towel a few times in a pinch


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## jennyema (Aug 29, 2008)

Can you share your pappadum recipe???


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## Jeekinz (Aug 29, 2008)

Oh yeah, I forgot it was meant for tea!  lol


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## GhettoRacingKid (Aug 29, 2008)

herei s a pic  jsut for S&G


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## Jeekinz (Aug 29, 2008)

What's the proper name for that "gadget"?   lol.


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## GrantsKat (Aug 29, 2008)

GhettoRacingKid said:


> herei s a pic jsut for S&G


 

I have one of those, I use it when I make corned beef.....


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## GhettoRacingKid (Aug 29, 2008)

i typed tea ball in google and a million things came up so i think thats the proper name


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## Jeekinz (Aug 29, 2008)

Cool.  I tried "tea pod" and came up with some sort of...tea pods.  lol


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## gadzooks (Aug 29, 2008)

tea ball.


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## kitchenelf (Aug 29, 2008)

They also make larger ones just for herbs/spices.  

I say NO to grinding your cloves - it's very annoying as it tends to float in your food...it's quite strong also.  Put them in the bag/ball.


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## hungry_dan (Aug 29, 2008)

jennyema said:


> Can you share your pappadum recipe???



well I'm embarrassed to admit that it's not my recipe, but I found it this very morning on video-dot-about-dot-com (sorry not allowed to do urls yet) - just search for poppadom recipe - she makes it look very simple.  unfortunately today at the enormous tesco in the next town they didnt' have Arud flour, and I'd not researched enough to find out which other Asian-based flour they had might do the same job.  I even asked an Indian woman working there who confessed her ignorance and pointed me to the pre-cooked poppadoms which I'm afraid to say I settled for on this occasion, as I'm incredibly busy tomorrow and won't have time to go to one of the asian food specialty shops in the town, but I will wear it as a badge of shame to remind me to try asap.

regarding the metal pod thing, I just remembered I have one of those in the house, for tea, but have never used it, although it might be a little small for all that I need to put in it on this occasion.  Anyway, I went to a fabric store today, and tho they didn't have cheesecloth they did have muslin (is that the same thing?) which I'd heard of before in cooking terms, so I bought .5m x 2m for £1.25  (about $USD 2.50) which isn't bad.  I have heard that it's also good for making perfect poached eggs, so I'll give that a go too soon.  I don't have the time or energy to search tonight but I would imagine that the perfect scrambled/poached eggs debates are raging somewhere on these forums.

I'll report on here as to how the dopiaza went, possibly not Sunday (I'm cooking it for a load of friends who are coming to watch the football and will doubtless drag me down the pub afterwards), but within the next few days.  Loving these forums already!!


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## Jeekinz (Aug 29, 2008)

Cheesecloth is usually near the cooking or baking tools in your supermarket.


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