Turmeric belongs to the ginger family.
The rootstalk of the plant, Curcuma longa, is the part used; this is dried and ground to a powder. It was used as a yellow dye centuries before Christ, and so the story goes, and still is so used today by women in the East.
Most people know turmeric only as an ingredient for coloring mustard pickles or prepared mustard, but it is a spice of great character and certainly deserves more usage. It is aromatic, with warm, rather musky overtones.
Turmeric is one of the basic ingredients of curry powder, and gives this its familiar color. The light-colored Madras turmeric, usually sold in a small airtight cans, is the best. This is one spice that does not appear whole in our markets. There is a great variation in color, depending upon the origin of the different kinds. Color alone is not a reliable guide to quality.
If you have a good Madras turmeric, combine it with ginger and cardamom in the quantity you prefer and you will have a quickly mixed curry powder. Often a pinch or two of turmeric is added to a dish merely to give it color.
An oven-fried cut-up chicken or a barbecued chicken, rolled in turmeric mixed with a little flour before cooking, will not only have a beautiful gold color when cooked but will also possess an added pleasant flavor.
Turmeric can always replace saffron in a recipe for the color, but the flavor will differ, of course.
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