After my adventures making Syrian Seven Spice damson jam here at Struan Farm earlier this week I decided to have a go trying to make up my own version of the Spice Diva's amazingly aromatic Syrian Seven Spice Mix. I'd purchased reasonable quantities of the seven ingredients: allspice, black pepper, cloves, cinnamon, green cardamom, rosemary, and nutmeg, but wasn't too sure about the relative proportions used in the mix, so went off to investigate further to see what I could find.
I found various versions of something called "Baharat," a Middle Eastern spice mix with similar but different ingredients. Some had cumin and coriander, others had paprika. What I like about The Spice Diva's version is that it is versatile, can flip flop between sweet and savoury. It doesn't have cumin, coriander or paprika, which I think would shift the balance more to savoury.
So here's what I did: ten teaspoons of allspice, four teaspoons black pepper, two teaspoons ground cloves, and one each of cinnamon, rosemary, nutmeg and green cardamom. It looks and smells pretty darned close to what I'm trying to achieve. Think I'm going to have to cook two fruit dishes, maybe an apple crumble, and use each to compare the end results.
Worse case I'll have friend Kris ship me more of the real deal from Charlottesville!
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