Cassia Bark
Someone bought me a bag of cassia bark from the Indian grocery store, but it is much bigger than the bag I normally buy. Now I have heaps of cassia bark and I was wondering how long it will last before it begins to loose flavour?
I only use cassia bark for frying at the beginning along with the rest of the garam spices. For making garam masala I use true cinnamon. I would estimate that there is probably enough cassia bark to last about two years, but the way I eat curry I don't know LOL!
Sid
You can keep Cassia (and cinnamon) in the freezer, in and airtight bag, indefinitely.
Most Indians in India actually use cassia bark when they say cinnamon, true cinnamon is expensive and not easily available in northern India. We use it to make garam masala as well.
it might be a waste of time, but if the weather ever stopped with rain giving you chance of a BBQ, wonder if it would give much flavour added to the charcoals ?
teve
I've certainly got enough of it to try :o) I do prefer to use true cinnamon, but the only problem I have found is that true cinnamon breaks apart in the pan. I normally fish it out when the onions have caramelised (rather than have any bits in the sauce). I wonder if there is another way to do it, say by adding a certain amount of cinnamon powder with the rest of the spices or just before, into hot oil?
Sid
you can make cassia oil by gently heating some cassia in an oil of your choice, I would use rape seed oil.
I made a garam masala oil for a guy running my local pub who did meals as well. I heated the oil, and extracted green cardamom, cassia, cloves and mace. Then put it all in a kilner jar, and he topped it up with more oil as he used it.
It wasn't long after that he opened another pub, I wonder if it had anything to do with the great tasting food!!
"It wasn't long after that he opened another pub, I wonder if it had anything to do with the great tasting food!! "
LOL! You should ask for royalties Lapis ;-)!
Thanks for the replies, ladies, and the cassia oil sounds interesting. If I didn't want to use cassia bark and I only wanted to use 'true' cinnamon, is there a way of imparting the cinnamon flavour into oil without having to fry pieces of cinnamon that break apart during the cooking process? As previously written, I usually fish the cinnamon stick out once the onions have caramelised, to prevent it from flaking apart into the sauce. I know cassia doesn't do that. Should I just continue to do as I normally do (fish it out), or can you recommend another way of doing it (i.e. adding a certain amount of cinnamon powder into the hot oil once the onions have caramelised),
Sid
I think that stick gives better flavour when added to hot oil in the beginning. You can always tie all garam masala pieces in a muslin piece but this may be a problem if you are adding it to the hot oil, as I usually do. I tend to lift out bay leaves/cinnamon/brown cardamoms etc. when I can see them. Indians are used to pushing these to the side of the plate. Others, I tell them that these things are for flavour only and should be removed, just like bones in meat.