Roast and grind your own masala, and your food will be just as tasty. That's the word from International Convention Centre (ICC) specialist Indian cuisine chef and resident cookery expert, Sheila Somers, in the wake of weekend reports that revealed carcinogenic dye Sudan Red had been found in chilli powders and other related spices on our supermarket shelves.
This colourant is a commercial dye which is prohibited in the use of food and according to researchers, could increase the risk of cancer over a period of time.
Said Somers: "People in South Africa are under the misconception that a pukka (real Indian) curry must look red. But it's not the colour that counts, it's the sawaad (taste)."
As major supermarkets removed millions of rands worth of spices, including Robertsons Peri-Peri spice, Osman's Taj Mahal Chilli Powder, Allifa's Extra Special Curry Powder, Bombay Special Peri-Peri Spice, Adamson's Spices Chicken Spice, Ma's Spices Curry Powder and Mother-In-Law Spice from their shelves, Somers urged curry lovers not to panic but rather roll up their sleeves and start to "roast and grind" their own masalas, which are free of preservatives or any toxic colourants.
Said Somers: "I have just returned from a very successful trip to India where I studied the latest in spices and cooking trends.
"Health conscious cooking is at the top of the menu and chefs are using fresh spices such as garlic, coriander, green chillies and cumin in their cooking."
She said in India most of the curries were either a brownish or greenish colour, and not red like "Durban curry".
"In India, tandoori chicken is also not red. It looks like normal roast chicken. But in Durban we have red, orange and yellow tandoori chicken. To obtain this colouring the tandoori and tikka spices have been loaded with colourants and preservatives, which could have serious health risks.
"Fresh spices bring out the flavour in a curry.
However, masalas bought off the supermarket shelf offer the food a bland taste or extreme heat with no flavour."
Buying masalas was a convenient way out, but no substitute for home-made spice, she added.
"By roasting and grinding your own masala you know what it contains and you can experiment until you find a flavour that suits your palette."
Somers said home-made masala was time-consuming and could take up to three days to make, but the end product was bursting with flavour. The spices required to make masala were readily available at most leading spice shops.
"In the old days our grannies made masala using an ookari musar (pestle and motar) or jaatha (grinding stone), but today we have the convenience of food processors or coffee grinders which takes away the tiresome manual labour."
She also suggested that cooks stick to using saffron or beetroot juice for colouring foods.
To get you started with your own masala-making at home, Somers has supplied us with a recipe for general use curry powder.
Ingredients: 500ml coriander powder, 200ml cumin powder, 200ml fennel seeds, 30ml black peppercorns, 25ml poppy seeds, 12,5ml shah jeera, 15ml ground nutmeg, 4 bay leaves, 12,5ml cloves, 25ml star aniseed, six black cardamoms, 50ml cinnamon powder, 25ml white cardamoms, 60ml turmeric powder, 250ml roasted and ground dry chillies.
Method: Pick over whole spices carefully and rinse in a large strainer. Spread spices on large trays and sun dry for a few hours. Heat oven to 120 degrees Celsius and roast spices for 15 minutes until aromatic, or use the traditional method and slow roast spices in a karhai. Cool then grind spices.
For daily use, store curry powder in a masala dubba (Indian spice tray) and freeze the rest in freezer bags.
Alifa Spices manager Yusuf Jooma said their entire range was in the process of being retested to ensure their products were safe, and the results would be made available early next week.
He said they had been using local chillies for the past year and were confident their products were all Sudan-free.