Curry is an international dish with a sauce or gravy seasoned with spices, mainly derived from the interchange of Indian cuisine with European taste in food, starting with the Portuguese and followed by the Dutch and British. Many dishes that would be described as curries in English are found in the native cuisines of countries in Southeast Asia and East Asia.
Five-spice powder is a spice mixture of five or more spices used predominantly in almost all branches of Chinese cuisine. The five flavors of the spices refers to the five traditional Chinese elements. The addition of eight other spices creates thirteen-spice powder (十三香), which is used less commonly.
Cardamom, sometimes cardamon or cardamum, is a spice made from the seeds of several plants in the genera Elettaria and Amomum in the family Zingiberaceae. Both genera are native to the Indian subcontinent and Indonesia. They are recognized by their small seed pods: triangular in cross-section and spindle-shaped, with a thin, papery outer shell and small, black seeds; Elettaria pods are light green and smaller, while Amomum pods are larger and dark brown.
Galangal is a common name for several tropical rhizomatous spices.
Garam masala is a blend of ground spices originating from South Asia. It is common in Indian, Pakistani, Nepalese, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan and Caribbean cuisines. It is used alone or with other seasonings. The specific fixings differ by district, but it regularly incorporates a blend of flavors like cardamom, cinnamon, cumin, cloves and peppercorns. Garam masala can be found in a wide range of dishes, including marinades, pickles, stews, and curries.
Amomum is a genus of plants containing about 111 species native to China, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, New Guinea, and Queensland. It includes several species of cardamom. Plants of this genus are remarkable for their pungency and aromatic properties.
South Asian cuisine, includes the traditional cuisines from the modern-day South Asian republics of Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, also sometimes including the kingdom of Bhutan and the emirate of Afghanistan. Also sometimes known as Desi cuisine, it has been influenced by and also has influenced other Asian cuisines beyond the Indian subcontinent.
Indian Chinese cuisine, Chinese Indian cuisine, Sino-Indian cuisine, Chindian cuisine, Hakka Chinese or Desi-Chinese cuisine is a distinct style of Chinese cuisine adapted to Indian tastes, combining Chinese foods with Indian flavours and spices. Though Asian cuisines have mixed throughout history throughout Asia, the most popular origin story of the fusion food resides with Chinese labourers of Calcutta, who immigrated to British India looking for work. Opening restaurant businesses in the area, these early Chinese food sellers adapted their culinary styles to suit Indian tastes.
Elettaria cardamomum, commonly known as green cardamom or true cardamom, is a herbaceous, perennial plant in the ginger family, native to southern India. It is the most common of the species whose seeds are used as a spice called cardamom that has a sharp, strong, punchy aroma. It is cultivated widely in tropical regions and reportedly naturalized in Réunion, Indochina, and Costa Rica.
A staple of Bhutanese cuisine is Bhutanese red rice, which is like brown rice in texture, but has a nutty taste. It is the only variety of rice that grows at high altitudes. Other staples include buckwheat and increasingly maize.
Litti is a whole wheat flour dough ball stuffed with a spiced mixture of sattu. Litti, along with chokha, is a complete meal that is popular in the Indian states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the Nepalese state of Madhesh. It is also a popular street food in small towns and cities. Over the years it has gained international recognition.
Aframomum corrorima is a species of flowering plant in the ginger family, Zingiberaceae. It is an herbaceous perennial that produces leafy stems 1–2 meters tall from rhizomatous roots. The alternately-arranged leaves are dark green, 10–30 cm long and 2.5–6 cm across, elliptical to oblong in shape. Pink flowers are borne near the ground and give way to red, fleshy fruits containing shiny brown seeds, which are typically 3–5 mm in diameter.
Lanxangia tsao-ko, formerly Amomum tsao-ko, and also known as black cardamom, is a ginger-like plant known in English by the transliterated Chinese name. It grows at high altitudes in Yunnan, as well as the northern highlands of Vietnam. Both wild and cultivated plants are used medicinally and also in cooking. The dried fruit of the plant has a pungent, gingery taste.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to herbs and spices:
Wurfbainia villosa, also known by its basionym Amomum villosum, is a plant in the ginger family which is grown as a cardamom-like spice throughout Southeast Asia and South China. Like cardamom, the plant is cultivated for its fruits, dry capsules containing strongly aromatic seeds. W. villosa is an evergreen monocotyledonous plant 1.5 to 3.0 m in height, the branches and leaves of which are similar to those of ginger. It grows in the shade of trees and has a reproductive peculiarity whereby those flowers borne on creeping growth at ground level will set fruit, while those borne on aerial branches will not. It blooms in March and April, the colour, translucency and waxy lustre of the flowers being likened traditionally to those of white jade.
Amomum ovoideum is a widespread shade-demanding rhizomatous herb of the ginger family (Zingiberaceae) native to Southeast Asia. The plant bears fruits up to 2 cm (0.79 in) long, covered by slender, soft, red spines. When dried, the fruit produces cardamom seedpods similar to other cardamom spice plants.
Húng lìu, named after basil, is a spice mixture of four or five spices found in Vietnamese cuisine.
Wurfbainia vera is a herbaceous plant in the Zingiberaceae family. Formerly called Amomum verum, it was the first plant species to be named by a woman, the Scots artist Elizabeth Blackwell in 1757. The Kingdom of Siam obtained the fruit (seeds) of the plant from Cambodia in the 18th century to export as a spice to China and Europe. The species occurs not only in Cambodia, but also in Sumatra, Thailand and Vietnam. The young leaf, the fruit and the seeds are edible, the seeds are known as Siam cardamom in English.
