Dr Rupy: I have the Queen of Spice from Ren's Kitchen on the show talking about everything to do with sourcing and investing in the best spices for your food, not just from a nutritional standpoint, but from a flavour perspective as well. I think that's super, super important. I've always been a fan of spices for their medicinal properties, but today I was honestly blown away by how much Ren taught me about spices and I was shocked at how different spices can taste in their raw, whole form. Ren has been in the spice business for years. She has some of the best chefs and restaurants using her spices, Tom Kerridge, Benares, Paloma, Raffles Hotel, Ottolenghi, just to name a few. Those are her clients. So if you want the best spices, I can highly recommend Ren. I have no financial ties to Ren whatsoever. This is not a sponsored podcast at all. We just went out and found the best spice producers, purveyors of spices and those who could talk to the flavour of spices and Ren came up multiple times. Remember, spices add diversity to your plate. They count as a quarter plant point each and we're aiming for 30 different plant points every week. So even in used in small amounts, the addition of spices is suggested to improve the gut microbiome composition and reduce markers of inflammation, which is why I'm such a big fan of spices in general. Plus they've been part of the human diet for thousands of years. They add a ton of flavour. They make healthy food palatable and enjoyable. So today we're going to be talking about what we're doing wrong when using spices, myself included, and what Ren has taught people in her cooking classes, how to source correctly, how to spot the best spices in the market, and you can find out a lot more about Ren and Ren's Pantry on her website, renspantry.com. Onto the podcast where you can also watch this podcast on YouTube and subscribe whilst you're there. I think you're going to want to watch this on YouTube, not because there's any specific graphics or anything, but you can see the colour differential between the spices that we're using. They are remarkably different and I was quite skeptical, I'll be honest at the start. I was like, well, as long as I'm getting a good brand from a decent supermarket, it's going to be fine. I was wrong. And I think this is going to change how we use spices both internally in the kitchen, but also at home for sure. I'm completely restocking all my spices because I value them so much as it pertains to not just the flavour, but the nutritional properties of getting some decent spices. So there are some practical tips into today's show. You can definitely see them on YouTube and we also did a video, a recipe using her spices that you can check out on YouTube soon as well. So go check it out there as well as listening here and make sure you follow and hit the notification bell on your podcast so you don't miss episodes like this because this is a goodie. You don't want to miss this. Onto the podcast.
Dr Rupy: Ren, why do we all need to be educated about spices?
Ren: We're using spices wrong. Everyone is. They're overcooking them, they're burning them in the process of cooking. They're not being careful about the actual way that they should be treated in the cooking process. And nobody really teaches you about that. They don't really, there's no education around that. Let's put it that way.
Dr Rupy: Well, we're lucky because we got taught by our family. We got taught the basics, but perhaps we didn't get taught the explanation as to why. We're just called, told you do it this way and that's it.
Ren: Oh, they're terrible. There was no explanation. Just watch and learn. Don't ask questions. Yeah, for sure. That was how my mum kind of taught me. She's terrible with measurements. I actually had to teach myself how to measure. And give measurements in my recipes. But it's the actual, it's actually watching my mum and understanding the way that she cooked and that rhythm that we talked about earlier, that rhythm of Indian cooking is what you have to get down in order not to burn your spices and to look after them.
Dr Rupy: Let's go through some of the, the actual specifics of what people are doing wrong when they're using spices. What are some of the biggest, because you've been doing your cooking class now for years, you've been in the spice game for years. What are the common mistakes you see and hear about when people use spices in their daily cooking?
Ren: Right, okay. So it starts at the beginning with what you're buying. Sorry.
Dr Rupy: That's right. You're picking on my spices.
Ren: I'm picking on your spices. These are terrible. But I'm not blaming you. So you're holding some coriander just for the audio.
Dr Rupy: Coriander seeds. These are coriander seeds. Okay, yeah.
Ren: Okay. So, okay, let's pick on these poor little coriander seeds. Do you see the colour? They're brown. And they've been heat treated, so they've been toasted already. And so most people, when you get asked to buy coriander seeds or you have, you want coriander seeds in your pantry, you'll go and buy these coriander seeds and you've got no education about them. And so it begins with that first and foremost, that message of knowing what to buy. So like, there's so many food messages out there at the moment, maybe adding more beans to your diet, being a flexitarian, reducing meat, making sure that if you do eat meat, get really good quality meat and don't buy and don't eat it that often. With eggs, don't buy barn eggs, buy organic eggs or free range organic eggs if you can afford them. But stay away from barn eggs or caged eggs. And nobody really talks about, oh, don't buy these. Right. Now, so these are heat treated, so they're already been roasted. So a recipe might say to you, roast your coriander seeds, okay? So you're going to buy these and then you're going to roast them again. Okay. So now you've roasted them and they're roasted a second time. The thing is, spices should only be cooked once. And if you cook them again, then they're going to be burnt. Burnt means bin. Now, when you're asked to buy a potato in a recipe, it's a raw potato that you're buying, right? And then you're cooking it in some method at home. Now, there's lots of different ways of cooking a spice. So firstly, roasting spices, which people are really comfortable doing, flat pan on a hob, put your spices onto the pan, and they roast and they become hard, right? They release their volatile oils and they go hard, right? They go, so imagine roasting an almond, the almond goes hard, right? And it goes crunchy. So that's one way of roasting a spice. Another way of roasting a spice or cooking a spice, should I say, is by putting any sort of friction. So if you put cumin seeds on there or coriander seeds in there.
Dr Rupy: You're talking about the pestle and mortar here.
Ren: On the pestle and mortar, you're, you're going like this and you're actually creating some sort of heat. Yes. Right? And that's also cooking the spice.
Dr Rupy: Oh, so I didn't realise that was a form of cooking.
Ren: Because you're heating it.
Dr Rupy: Applying that friction, you're right. Yeah, it creates warmth.
Ren: It does. Another way is what, say for example, you had some potatoes and you wanted to put them in the oven or air fry, whatever you were using, and you toss them in some coriander seeds. That application of heat, oven, air fry, whatever it is, is cooking your potatoes, but it's also cooking your coriander seeds, right? So that's a way of cooking spices. And then finally, with Indian food, what we call a tempering or a tarka or a vagar is the cooking principle of putting the fat into the pan and your spices going into that fat. Okay. And what they're essentially doing is they're deep fat frying in that oil. Right. And that's cooking them. Okay. Right. So fundamentally, when, when I talk to my students, I find out what do you do? And it's lovely roasting and grinding and yeah, pestle and mortar and, but you shouldn't be doing it because you're killing the spice. Sorry for being like a killjoy in the kitchen. But actually, you, you're cooking the spice to death.
Dr Rupy: So, so to summarize what you're saying, and correct me if I've got this wrong here, the spices should only be cooked once.
Ren: Correct.
Dr Rupy: And commonly, what you see is you're using heat treated spices that have already been cooked. And so really, that should only be used as a garnish, not as something.
Ren: As a finishing spice.
Dr Rupy: Gotcha. Okay.
Ren: Right?
Dr Rupy: Okay. All right. So you've got my brown coriander heat treated coriander seeds there. Let's see some what it should. Oh, wow. That's very different. Okay. So for the audio, for the podcast listeners here, this almost looks like a coriander seed, which is the same colour as a cardamom pod.
Ren: Yeah, they're green.
Dr Rupy: It's like a citrus lemony green. Wow.
Ren: And they're raw. And, can I smell that?
Dr Rupy: Yeah. Wow. Oh, and it says raw.
Ren: Right. So our branding actually tells you what it is. And when you're buying spices from supermarkets, let's say, it doesn't tell you what's happened to them. Okay.
Dr Rupy: What should I try first? Should I try my brown ones first or yours?
Ren: No, try mine first. So try these and I'm going to go through the notes again with you. So they're complete aromatic. There's no heat, right? And as you chew them, they taste like lime and, and tastes like a Thai green curry in your mouth.
Dr Rupy: Yes, it does. Oh my gosh. 100% Thai green curry. That is exactly what I'm getting.
Ren: Aren't they lovely? And you know, the other thing is, is that people see whole spices and they don't know what to do with them. They're a bit scary and the natural instinct is to roast them and grind them and add them in. But actually, I would put these into a kebab, for example. Pakoras, all sorts of things so you get that lovely pop. That is, that is awesome. Can I try mine now?
Ren: You, you can try them with gusto. Let's put it that way.
Dr Rupy: Okay. All right. And you're going to try those. And you can see, look, mine are plump and gorgeous. Yours are tiny and brown and nasty.
Ren: Yeah, they're really tiny.
Dr Rupy: But the thing is, considering you just buy, I just buy these from the supermarket, right? Or online sometimes, you can get it from Jeff Bezos's shop. And when you, when you, you just don't have a comparison. So when they arrive, you're like, oh yeah, coriander seeds.
Ren: Yeah, because you don't, you, you, you presume that wherever you're buying them from, they know better. And it's because we're not educated on spices, you, you just take it as rote, don't you?
Dr Rupy: So these still have a lot of flavour.
Ren: I'll be the judge. Let me taste.
Dr Rupy: Okay, go on, you try them. These still have a lot of flavour, but it's bitter. It's a lot more bitter than yours. Yours tastes floral almost. There's a sweetness to it. Those taste bitter, but there is some flavour in them. Okay. You're looking at me like, I've just insulted you.
Ren: They're so bitter. They're so bitter at the end. It's really upset me. So you imagine now, right?
Dr Rupy: Really upset me.
Ren: I normally say to my students, lob it back in the supermarket window where they belong. Take it back, go and get your money back. They're bitter. So imagine now, without talking to me, you would have roasted those and you would have made them even more bitter. And then you would have ground them or in something more sophisticated like a spice grinder.
Dr Rupy: I would have 100%. I'm being very honest, that's exactly how I would have used them.
Ren: I like your honesty.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. No, no, that's right. Okay, great. Well, I mean, so for context, you're educating Michelin star chefs on this, you know, subject matter. I think we all need an education in the same way, like I, I reckon chefs are the purveyors of what becomes commonplace within the general public and the general population. They're the first people to talk about, you know, getting local cuts of meat, for example, making sure your fish has come from a sustainable source, ensuring that you're getting the best quality eggs, you know, the type of flour that you use. It all comes down from people who live and breathe food. And so if you're educating those people about spices, it's no wonder that most people, including home cooks like myself, don't know anything about it. So, okay, you've educated me on coriander seeds for sure. I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg, right?
Ren: I love those coriander seeds.
Dr Rupy: I love them too. All right. So I'm taking that. That's going in my pantry. You're not going to leave, you're not leaving with that. I'm taking that. Thank you. Oh God, how many hours have we got?
Ren: We've got a little while.
Dr Rupy: But you, so, so that's one of the first lessons.
Ren: So it's about, it's about checking your spices and tasting them and, and making and so, so simplifying that ingredients list, right? So I'm okay with an ingredients list that's half a page long. I'm okay with that, right? I don't mean simplifying as in removing things. What I mean is, is that you need to know what all of those ingredients do, what the job role of that ingredient is, why we're adding that into our food. And the only way you can do it is by tasting your ingredients, tasting every single ingredient before you try it. Your mustards, your vinegars. I mean, you know, I'm constantly asking people, what's the difference between red and white wine vinegar? And most people say, red's sweeter. But if you do the Pepsi Cola challenge, they taste the same.
Dr Rupy: Do they?
Ren: Yes. And it's only, yes. And it's only because it's colour. You know, they use white wine vinegar in white food and, you know, red wine vinegar in sort of red food. And but what's the job of vinegar is to cut through things, make things astringent. That's the job. Forget about the colour, forget about what it looks like, forget about the name almost. You know, it's about what it tastes like. And so the minute you start tasting your ingredients, your knowledge level just zooms up straight away. And also really cleverly, you start using up your ingredients that we've all got loads of things in our pantry in the back and we never use and whatever. And actually what you should be doing is tasting things and then going, do you know what? I could just finish that jar off and put it in my pasta sauce or my bolognese or my curry because it kind of goes together. You realize that you could use substitutes for things like if you can't find Thai green basil, you could use star anise instead. You know what I mean? So you start, yeah, you start to understand those flavours and tasting them. So during my classes.
Dr Rupy: Do you have a cheat sheet for that? Because I'm literally thinking, wouldn't it be amazing if you had a cheat sheet for, okay, if you've got a fresh herb, what is an easy spice that you keep in your store cupboard that you could replace said fresh herb if it called for it in a recipe?
Ren: You're giving me homework.
Dr Rupy: I am giving you homework, but I think that would really help. The another example that we talked about earlier when we cooked was hing. So, you know, if you're allergic to onions and garlic or you're intolerant to them or you just don't have them, but you want that flavour, so your, your food is, your recipe is balanced, you use a bit of hing. That was something that I learned today.
Ren: Yeah, yeah. So amazing. Hing is such an incredible. And just because it smells not very nice, it doesn't smell very nice, but it's actually super delicious. And so, yeah, so the, the trouble with students is that they're buying spices that are already heat treated and then just misusing them. And it's just this thing of, you know, chefs on TV that I get really annoyed with and my chefs that I get really annoyed with that we supply and it's like, stop doing that. And they do, you know, they listen to me. Once I've done the masterclass, they listen to me and they say, right, we never roast spices again, Ren, we just, we know. And I cut, you know, I cut time out of the kitchen. I reduce kitchen time.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. Okay, I've got that. Heat treated tick. All right. So making sure that I'm looking at that. What's the next, what's the next sort of category of things that you feel people are.
Ren: But using the spices in the incorrect order. So there is this thing where I can feel quite passionately about. You know, they'll, students will say, you know, I put my ground spices in to the bottom of the pan to cook them out. And I, you know, I have quite a lot of arguments with people going, what does that mean? What does cook out mean? Tell me. And nobody knows the answer to that. Still nobody knows. And again, it's, so it's a process. First of all, using whole spices in the oil, never putting ground spices in the bottom of the pan. We did with our asafetida today, but it went in for seconds, right? Before it got coated with the vegetables. But the thing is, is that you use the spices in the right order. So ground spices go into something wet or where it's got vegetables to hold it or meat to hold it so they don't touch the bottom. So we're not burning. Again, it's, it's all around the same principle of spices and looking after our spices and, you know, the journey that my gorgeous spices are going through.
Dr Rupy: Are there general principles of the order like, uh, uh, like whole spices, ground spices.
Ren: So whole spices go into the oil all the time.
Dr Rupy: Just to clarify, whole spices are the seeds or like star anise or cinnamon, right? All of those, but pepper, whole spices. And then your powder would go into something later on in the cooking. And even if you're making a chili con carne, I would never put in my chili con carne mix or anything in with those onions. And actually, just so that people remember, I always say that, you know, never have yellow onions. Why are your onions yellow? Because you've added turmeric into the, into your onions. So no more yellow onions. I always add those, I always add the turmeric later into the dish so you don't burn that turmeric. Because as you saw earlier, it's really bitter and you have to be careful with it.
Dr Rupy: Okay, yeah, yeah.
Ren: And then your heat provider. And then that comes later. And that's very personalized. Like, you know, you might be, you might like your food really, really spicy and I might not. But we're trying to make the same dish at dinner, right? So it's about personalization and making one pot, not two pots, and making yours hot as you wish on that day and mine not so hot as I wish on that day.
Dr Rupy: Just going back to the heat treated, do you ever toast spices before like grinding them and then putting them as a topper? You never do that?
Ren: Um, I really like the flavour of our spices, so we would use them as a finishing spice raw. Imagine those coriander seeds in a salad, right? But there is one thing I do roast and that would be something like a sesame seed. Whereas I, you know, that's almost like a nut. You, if you, when you roast a sesame seed and then add it onto the top or it goes in our za'atar, we roast our sesame seed then, but that's literally the only thing that we roast.
Dr Rupy: I'll give you an example of another way in which I've used spices. And feel free to say that's wrong.
Ren: I will.
Dr Rupy: Have you met me yet? So, uh, when we were in Malaysia, we made a dish, um, that was loosely based on popiah. Popiah is a street food where they wrap it, uh, like, um, crab meat and a few other ingredients like bean curd and stuff in like a wheat gluten crepe almost. It's a very, very thin galette almost. So we made a version where I wrapped some stewed down sweet potato, beetroot and jicama, which is like Mexican turnip, in a few spices. And then we wrapped it in a rice paper roll. And then I fried that rice paper roll in a little bit of oil to give some crispiness to it. So it's like a big fat cigar and then we chopped it up and then we served it with some sambal. But to the oil, I added clove and cinnamon to flavour the oil. So the outside of that rice paper roll had that flavour.
Ren: Whole spice?
Dr Rupy: Whole spice.
Ren: Yeah, that's allowed.
Dr Rupy: That's allowed, is it? Okay, fine.
Ren: Okay, so hold on a second. So let me just, okay, let me wait. So let me just show you something. Where are we? This is our garam masala, mild curry powder. What are you looking for? Cajun, right?
Dr Rupy: Cajun. All right, yeah.
Ren: Okay. So where, um, you would be really excited to make your own Cajun rub at home, right? And I'm not trying to take people's joy out of this, by the way. So, okay, so the, the, the recipe for this would say, roast your whole spices and then grind them. And then mix them with your say chili powder and cayenne and sweet paprika, for example. So we don't roast. We go straight to grind. And we very sophisticatedly grind our spices so there's no heat there. The machine, we don't let the machines get hot.
Dr Rupy: So it's almost like cold pressing.
Ren: Kind of. So, so we don't let our machines get hot and they stay cool all the time. So you end up with a product that's raw. Okay. Now then this Cajun, if you put this into something, are you cooking it once? If you put this on potatoes and put it in the oven, you're cooking it once. It's not really cooked. So all our blends, everything that we have is raw.
Dr Rupy: Is raw. Okay. All right. Okay. I'm sold. I'm sold on this now because I understand the principle.
Ren: You get it.
Dr Rupy: The principles behind it. And I reckon there's probably some extra nutritional value. I know, I don't know if you, if you've tested your spices for antioxidant value, given that it is raw versus heat treated, but I think that could be something you should look into with an independent lab because if there is a difference, that's another selling point beyond the flavour alone.
Ren: So you want me to try, just try a little bit, do you?
Dr Rupy: I do. I want you to try that. Okay. So I'm just, just for the podcast listeners, I'm just got like a pinch on the end of a teaspoon.
Ren: See, you're getting used to it now. You're getting used to trying everything. It's good, isn't it?
Dr Rupy: Wow. Yum. Wow. That is like chili, salty, um, sweet. I'm actually getting sweet. Oh, it's got epazote in. Mexican epazote. Yeah. I usually don't like epazote on its own. I find it a little bit too herbaceous. Yes. But it is really good in this. It works. Wow. There is so much flavour in this. That's, that's phenomenal. That is really phenomenal. And the, the colour, forgive me for saying this, if this is the wrong thing, but it, it looks almost grayish. It doesn't look like a vibrant red, uh, colour, but I, I guess, is that because it's raw?
Ren: Yeah, it's raw. But the other thing is, is that, um, in there is, um, garlic powder. And that, once you've added that in, it, it kind of takes away the colour a lot. We found that. But it, it is what it is. Right, try this. This is my house rub. So as you can see, look, you've got whole coriander seeds and whole fennel seeds in there. And they are raw. And that's one of the first rubs I made years and years ago. It's like one of the best rubs. And it's got sugar in it.
Dr Rupy: Oh, wow. And it's so good with chicken and it's, it's just good with everything. It's brilliant with tofu. Really good.
Ren: That is delicious. The brown, the brown sugar, is it brown sugar?
Dr Rupy: Yes. Wow. That's really good.
Ren: Yeah, I'm not anti-sugar, don't get me wrong. I think we use sugar in excess. But it needs, it's a required to balance flavours. And this is what I keep on drilling into people. A, it's not sugar per se, it's the excess of sugar. And B, it's a very necessary ingredient when you're messing around with spices and stuff. And that's why they use it in Asian cooking, um, Mexican cooking, North American cooking.
Ren: Especially when you've got tomatoes that you need to balance the acidity. Yeah.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I want to ask you about single origin and traceability of spices. What are your opinions on this?
Ren: Right. Um, should I be looking for single origin? I don't know. I, I, I think that I feel like, um, recently there's been lots of, oh, single origin this, single origin that. And I don't, I'm not sure. I look, we as a business, we've, we're SALSA accredited. That means that we've got an accreditation where we know exactly where our spices come from.
Dr Rupy: What does SALSA mean? Sorry?
Ren: Oh, what's SALSA?
Dr Rupy: Yeah, what is that?
Ren: It's not the dance. It's not the food. SALSA accreditation means that you're certified for all good processes in your business. You know, a lot of food companies that we work with, they need you to be SALSA accredited in order to supply them.
Dr Rupy: Okay. So it's kind of like, like a, like a B Corp equivalent or something?
Ren: Almost. Yes, almost. But also, you know, we have forward and backward traceability, which is really important.
Dr Rupy: Gotcha. So I should be looking for this whenever if I'm choosing spices, I should be looking.
Ren: For a SALSA accredited company. Well, it just means that they're taking care of their processes, you know, making sure that all their processes are proper and they've got proper specification for all of their spices and proper specification and for all their ingredients and proper processes for everything. You know, breakage process and allergy processes. We've got it all. You know. And as a business, we, we put ourselves through it. We, we had the most amazing consultant helping us, you know, hand holding us through the process, but he knew we were so passionate about what we did. He helped us immensely.
Dr Rupy: Okay. You got some of my favourite.
Ren: Oh, cardamom.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, that's like my favourite.
Ren: Makes you burp.
Dr Rupy: Does it?
Ren: Yeah, it's really good. Do you want it?
Dr Rupy: I'll try it. Yeah. So you know my dad would, would chew on these like all the time.
Ren: It's a great breath freshener. Yeah.
Dr Rupy: But this is like the greenest cardamom I've seen like outside of India.
Ren: Isn't it lovely? Yeah. So you can eat the whole thing. You're not going to take the seeds out.
Dr Rupy: Where are these from?
Ren: They're from India.
Dr Rupy: No, I just, I just eat the whole thing and spit out the.
Ren: Do you?
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah.
Ren: Attractive.
Dr Rupy: That's how I do it. Yeah, yeah. That's how we all do it.
Ren: No.
Dr Rupy: Okay, sorry. Oh, no, well, I, okay, I mean, okay, so just as a little chewing gum, you would do it like that. Okay, got it.
Ren: I spit it out afterwards. Yeah.
Dr Rupy: Okay. Sorry. Tell me about cardamom.
Ren: So, um, okay, so you're asking about single origin. Okay, so I know where these come from. I have a specification. I have documentation to tell me that it's pure cardamom. It's not pretending to be something else, right? And, um, I have a specification of where it comes from. My company that we buy it from, they know exactly where it comes from. And if we want farm information, we can get that. Okay. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, I feel like single, the word single origin's come and I don't, I think, you know, like people spout it around and I'm still, as long as I know that this hasn't come from seven different countries, right? Hasn't come from seven different countries and just packed without care and there's, you know, child labour involved. I know that that's not happened with those. I know that they've, they've come from one farm or a collection of farms in India. I'm happy with that.
Dr Rupy: Is there, is, is that what SALSA accreditation confirms? The, the no slave trade, no.
Ren: All of it. It basically helps you run the business correctly. You know. And we decided that when we moved into a warehouse, we decided, look, you know what, we want to, we want to do own label for companies. We want to, we want to work with some really, you know, big companies out there and they expect that then. They expect that.
Dr Rupy: And so with cardamom, given that, like, I mean, I use this all the time, right? So I'd get through a jar. How long should I be keeping a spice like this or the coriander seeds, for example, or any of my spices? How often do we need to be replacing these?
Ren: That is such a good question. You know how I've shown you how to taste things, right? That has got a best before date on it. Okay. But what you do is, you taste it. Okay. And you go, is there any flavour? And you say, yes, there is. And you just like you do with your cheese and your cauliflower and whatever it is, the same applies.
Dr Rupy: Okay. Okay. So you've got to taste your spices.
Ren: My, my spices will last a couple of years. Things like this, things like your coriander seeds should never have been bought in the first place. I'm sorry, darling. But it's true. And you see why, right?
Dr Rupy: Yeah. So when you buy your spices, right? The first thing I should be doing, I go to do my shop or whatever, or I get it from online or, you know, a nice spice store. And I taste my spices. I open up the jar, taste the spices, I remember that flavour. And so when it goes, when it comes to like three, four months down the line and I'm using it for a recipe and I taste it again before I start using it in the, in my curry or whatever. I should be able to recognize, you know what? This is off. In the same way, I pull out cheese from my.
Ren: Exactly. It doesn't go off. None of the spices go off. But they, but they just taste, they don't taste so good. They don't taste so vibrant. But it doesn't, it still doesn't mean that you wouldn't use them. It could be that you just use a bit more. Right? It still, I mean, there is some spices that I could show you that don't really taste of anything. Like if you have, you don't have coriander powder here. I don't. But if you had, if you had coriander powder, and for your listeners at home, they should try their coriander powder.
Dr Rupy: That's coriander powder there, that the orange swatch, um, behind on the, just on the. Yeah, yeah, there. That's coriander powder. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ren: So I'm going to.
Dr Rupy: And that's a generally a brand I don't like to use, sorry, Schwartz, um, because the flavour, I, I've tried them before and there's just there's no flavour in them. Like I, they look like sawdust, they taste like sawdust. There's no flavour in it at all. Yeah. Do you want to try it?
Ren: I know what it tastes like.
Dr Rupy: You know what it tastes like.
Ren: Yeah, I know. You're looking very annoyed at me.
Dr Rupy: No, I do. I don't get annoyed with you. I'm just, you know, I just get annoyed. It's passion.
Ren: Tastes like literally nothing.
Dr Rupy: So see now I've taught you what nothing tastes like, haven't I?
Ren: Yeah, it's literally.
Dr Rupy: So that's nothing. So if you've got spices that in your cupboard.
Ren: That literally tastes like sawdust. It to me, it is.
Dr Rupy: And mine? Oh, wow, that's very different. This is green.
Ren: And taste it.
Dr Rupy: Oh, gosh. All right, go on.
Ren: Is this your dinner?
Dr Rupy: Okay, let's. I mean, just looking at it, even on like side by side, it is so, it's a world's apart. Like one looks like brown sawdust, the other one is like a yellow fine powder. Oh, wow. It's really punchy. Gosh, there's no sugar in that, is there?
Ren: There's no sugar. So I, you know, if you're going to put that in baking, I know it's yummy. It's so yummy.
Dr Rupy: I'm shocked. I'm genuinely shocked. It tastes like you've cut this with brown sugar.
Ren: This is amazing. My mind is blown with that.
Dr Rupy: Wow. You are the spice dealer.
Ren: I am the spice dealer.
Dr Rupy: I'm your spice pusher. I love it.
Ren: During COVID, you know, there were chefs that weren't.
Dr Rupy: I'm just checking the ingredients here, making sure you're not duping me. This is brilliant.
Ren: There's no sugar. I, I've had students or chefs say, is there sugar in there, Ren? Promise me. I'm like, no, there's no sugar in there.
Dr Rupy: That's, that is really, that is really phenomenal. Like, yeah, I'm, I'm blown away by that.
Ren: There's a whole new world.
Dr Rupy: That is a whole new, I'm, I'm kind of worried actually, because like, if I look through my previous four cookbooks, and if I use your pungency of spices in there, I might have to adjust the ingredients. Like I might have to dial it down on certain amounts of ground cardamom and cinnamon and stuff, because like that's going to be a wealth of flavour right there. But that's a, that's a, that's a good, it's a good thing.
Ren: Maybe, maybe what you can do is you can rewrite your recipe in my, in Ren's order.
Dr Rupy: In Ren's order. Yeah. For your next book, for your next book.
Ren: That is really good.
Dr Rupy: And then obviously when I'm teaching, then it's all about the cooking and how brown you should get your onions and then how quick things can be as well and how, and just to see visually, you know, it's, it's much easier, much better to have somebody cooking with you. Um, I'm not so scary. I'm actually not. I get really passionate about the spice bit and then I calm down and become really nice.
Dr Rupy: So, so, um, I'll give you an example of something that I do, um, and I'm going to try doing with raw spices now. And now I understand the delineation between raw and and heat treated or pre-cooked. Um, I cook generally on low heat. And so I will brown onions on a very low heat, take 15 minutes, let's say, just to get that sort of caramelization. But sometimes, particularly when I'm just messing around in my kitchen, I'll just throw spices in there as well because I know that I'm doing it at a very low heat. It's not necessarily going to burn them. It doesn't go acrid, it doesn't affect the flavour. Is that something that again, you would be like, no, you're doing it wrong. You need to be doing it a certain way or am I allowed a little bit of flexibility in how I use that?
Ren: That's okay. As long as, as long as where you've got your onions and you're cooking them for 15 minutes, there's nothing ground in there.
Dr Rupy: No, no, no ground spices.
Ren: As long as they're whole spices in there.
Dr Rupy: So it's whole, yeah. So I tend to go whole anyway, like cumin, uh, fennel seeds, whack them in with the onions. Probably not right at the start, maybe like five minutes into the cooking process, add the spices, and then I layer on like whatever else I'm cooking with, whether it's like greens or whether it's like, you know, kale stems, and then like I add the chickpeas and then I'll, you know, I'll just go off piste with whatever I've found, like maybe a piece of fish and.
Ren: Yeah. That's okay. But then it's just about then the where you put the ground spices in. At what point would you put the ground spices in?
Dr Rupy: They would always go quite low, but I do like to, and you're probably going to rinse me now for saying this, I do like to, uh, cook the spice a little bit before, I wouldn't put a spice in raw right at the end of the cooking, because I feel that that would be too bitter a flavour myself anyway. That's that, that's how I.
Ren: At the end? Yeah, I don't, I don't put it right at the end.
Dr Rupy: Unless I'm doing a rub or something like that.
Ren: There was this thing, I remember growing up and watching chefs on TV and they'd put their garam masala in at the end. And I never understood that. I, I only put things in at the end where I feel like, oh, we need a bit more. That's my reasoning behind it. Like I taste it and go, oh, you know what? I've put the garam masala in, but I can't taste it. Let's put some more in. Okay, yeah, yeah. But apart from that, you wouldn't do it. I don't on purpose put things in at the end. Everything gets cooked as they get cooked.
Dr Rupy: The only instance where I put any sort of masala in the end is if like I've made a raita or like a yogurt on the side and I just want to put a little bit of garam masala on top.
Ren: Yeah.
Dr Rupy: With like mint or, you know, some coriander or whatever.
Ren: Okay. That's the only time I'd use that. Yeah, nice. Garam masala in your raita.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Ren: You're a proper northern Indian boy.
Dr Rupy: A tiny bit, just a tiny bit.
Ren: Garam masala in everything. Do you put it in your tea as well? I bet you do. I bet you put it in your tea. Taste my mild curry powder.
Dr Rupy: Okay. All right.
Ren: You can have another, have another spice mix in your repertoire.
Dr Rupy: So this mild curry powder, right? This looks like, uh, green yellow. Mild curry powder to me, anyone that I've seen in a supermarket is brown, almost like, you know, the colour of the cinnamon that you just gave me there. So this already immediately looks completely different. You know, you know what I want, um, what I want people to do is have not just one garam masala in their kitchen. I want, I want, I want people to have, um, lots of different masalas.
Dr Rupy: Wow. This is delicious. Really incredible, incredible flavour in that mild curry powder, just from the powder. That is phenomenal.
Ren: With, with my students, I'd get them to bring me their spices, as I said. And everybody would bring me their curry powder and be like, we don't use curry powder in Indian food. How dare you? How dare you? Um, but actually, I really like it now. Because we make our own. I love it even more, obviously. But, um, you know, it's that sort of what goes in katsu curry and Singapore noodles and that sort of thing. But also, look, you just swap it out. So instead of using the garam masala, use this. Right? And have that, have that, you know, have few masalas so that you can make exactly the same dish and just change the masala. That's all you have to do to get points of difference with that food, because we get bored with our own food, don't we? Like you don't want to be known as Rupy making that same curry. You can make it, you can make it, but then change the masala. So I'm going to get you to taste this.
Dr Rupy: Okay, what is that?
Ren: Which is our Madras.
Dr Rupy: So what is typically in a Madras curry powder?
Ren: Fenugreek. Lots of fenugreek. And you're going to taste that as well.
Dr Rupy: So just, yeah, just open that up. It's packed. And then, and it's a little bit more punchy than the garam masala as well.
Ren: Yeah. And it's got fennel in it as well.
Dr Rupy: Fennel. Okay. Do you know, I love that on popcorn.
Ren: Oh, that would be amazing on popcorn. My dinner on a Friday night is popcorn. Because I'm done with food.
Dr Rupy: We've got to talk about your diet then. Oh no, you're, you're sat over there giving me crap about my spices. Let's look at what you eat on a Friday night.
Ren: It's time to turn the tables. This is delicious.
Dr Rupy: Popcorn's good for you.
Ren: You know what? Black pepper really comes through in this, this particular brand, Madras curry powder. And then also that fenugreek for sure. And the fennel. Can you, yeah. That is really, really powerful. I love that. And not too hot for me, certainly not for me. That is really good.
Ren: And so, you know, you can, you could put that, run that through mayonnaise. You can, like I said, popcorn, you could put it on a snack.
Dr Rupy: Would you put that raw through mayonnaise?
Ren: Yes, 100%. Don't do anything to it.
Dr Rupy: You don't need to do anything.
Ren: It's raw. Run it through mayonnaise or tartar sauce, make yourself a fish burger.
Dr Rupy: It feels alive. It feels alive. That's the best way I can describe the sort of selection of spices. We've been dancing around the obvious point, which is price, right? So we look at the cumin seeds that I want to try. I mean, I've got an own label there, um, and cumin seeds, there's Barts, and then there's one that I bought from bulk foods over there. Um, those, you know, the price will probably be about, um, I don't know, a pound, pound 50, um, for some of those, um, pots. So 40 grams, I believe that is. What, what are we talking about in terms of the, how much should quality spices cost?
Ren: They don't, they shouldn't cost too much, okay? But these are cheap because they're rubbish. So there's no, they're like I said before, they're a commodity. They get treated as a commodity. There's no, there's no research done. There's, they're roasted to the hilt. They're bitter. So, my thinking is you've spent one pound 50 on 40 grams, that's one pound 50 down the toilet. You shouldn't have spent that one pound 50.
Dr Rupy: So how much should I be spending? What, what ballpark figure should I be spending for, let's use cumin seeds because I think cumin seeds is one of the most popular.
Ren: To get, to get raw cumin seeds, like you're talking about two pound 25, three pounds for 40 grams. I mean.
Dr Rupy: So, but that's not, that's not a massive difference in my mind because how often people buy cumin seeds depends on the typical cuisine at home. But like we've just been saying, you probably need to use less.
Ren: You use less and they last forever. They don't go off. So you shouldn't be buying those in the first place because they're bitter and they've been roasted.
Dr Rupy: Let me try, I'm going to try one more.
Ren: Which one?
Dr Rupy: So, yeah, so you're going to try.
Ren: So try the one that's closest to you.
Dr Rupy: Okay, okay, yeah. How would you, how would you describe the colour of those?
Ren: Yeah, they're grey, but my main thing is, have they been roasted? And they have.
Dr Rupy: Okay. So, okay. It's, you know, and they're quite bitter. You know, um, cumin is so misused. People think that you should roast it and then grind it for ages and, you know, get it all smoky. But they're so, can you taste, they're so bitter. Even mine are bitter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? Taste those now.
Dr Rupy: Oh my God. Why did you make me do that? I'm your guest. You should be nice to me. Okay. Those, I can tell they've been roasted because they, the texture is crispy.
Ren: Right. They're cooked.
Dr Rupy: These weren't as crispy, the ones I used here. These are from source bulk foods. Okay. But these Waitrose cooks ingredients ones are crispy. These are like, like sesame seeds. Wow. This is, you know, the revelation for me.
Ren: So if you put those, if you put those into oil, you're now going to burn them.
Dr Rupy: So, yeah, this is the biggest revelation for me is I never taste my spices raw. I never do this raw. I always taste them afterwards, but I don't do it raw. So that's probably one of the first things, you know.
Ren: And you're just going to do it now by, you're just going to do it now. You won't, you won't use anything. You'll have my dulcet tones in your head.
Dr Rupy: You know why? Because I think most people have the impression that if you haven't cooked with them or you haven't added to your spice, your dish, of course they're going to taste terrible. But what you've educated me on is actually the flavour of the spices when they're raw, actually tastes delicious on their own.
Ren: Aren't they? They're lovely.
Dr Rupy: Okay, so let's try your, your, your cumin seeds here. Those, you want to try this right straight away?
Ren: Yeah.
Dr Rupy: All right. Okay, hold on. Did you just say, oh God?
Ren: No, no, I said, I said, hold on.
Dr Rupy: Oh God. Oh God. We're going to try black mustard, aren't we? Oh, yeah. And they're soft.
Ren: And they should be soft.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. These are delicious, aromatic.
Ren: And you see how the flavour just keeps, it just keeps going.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you're right. You're right. Okay. I was, I was skeptical. I didn't think, yeah, I didn't think it was going to matter that much. I honestly thought that I was going to try them and be like, yeah, those are better. Those are like slightly more pungent. There was a world of difference. That, like I've just, you know, I, I put that in my mouth and chewed it 15 seconds ago now, and it's still developing a different flavour. It's still sort of, um, blossoming on my, on my palate. And I, I can really tell the difference. Okay. Yeah. And that speaks to me from, you know, from a nutrition point of view. Yes. The, the, uh, the flavours, the phytochemicals, they're, the, the pungency, these are all indicative, probably, I know we haven't lab tested these, but they're probably indicative of better health benefits, more health benefits, more antioxidants, etc. The reason why I use so many spices in the first place. So that's really interesting.
Ren: Yeah.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. Okay. All right. You've convinced me. So, how, how about your other, your chefs, right? So, particularly right now, there's a lot of attention being given to restaurateurs, um, you know, a lot of these supply chains being hit with higher prices. You, I'm imagining you're battling with your chefs all the time. You're trying to educate them as to why. So tell, give us a bit of insight into that.
Ren: So, um, look, we've, as a business, we, I started Ren's Pantry eight years ago, going into restaurants, educating chefs, and then that just turned into supplying them, right? And we supply hundreds of restaurants now up and down the country. And it's, I, what I would say is those clever chefs that got it, you know, you, they would just do, you know, I'd go into their kitchen and I'd say, all right, well, taste my spices. And sometimes they'd be like, whoa, why is she getting me to taste spices? But then I'd say, all right, go and, yeah, like, well, like everybody, right? Um, and then I'd say, okay, get your cinnamon powder and try mine. And then they'd look at me and say, okay, got it. And all right. You're in our kitchen. And you find that there's these chefs and then I would go and I do, you know, masterclasses with my students, with my chefs. And it's, you know, front of house, back of house, the accountants, everybody, the chefs, everybody joins in. And it's all about educating them again about this whole new world of spices, using less, using proper spices, don't roast and all the rest of it. Um, the price, when we first started our business, the prices were high because I was running it from my cookery school and the, um, you know, I was getting really small quantities. Now we're in warehouse, like number two now we're in, you know, we, we were able to get lower prices. So actually in lots of instances, I'm reducing prices. It's, you can buy really cheap prices, spices out there. You can buy, you know, you can buy coriander powder for four pound 50 a kilo, I don't know. But it does taste of rubbish. So it is that battle, like you said, it's that battle of teaching them about that you need my stuff, but you just need a little bit. And in most instances, they're using 30, 40% less. And what we're doing also is, um, we're quite unique with our business, what we do. We, you don't, there's no set amount. So if a, if a chef only wants 100 grams of clove, which quite rightly so, um, they only get 100 grams of clove. They don't need to be ordering one kilo. Because what are you going to do with one kilo of clove, right? So, and we supply them in small amounts in plastic free paper packaging. Um, we begin with tubs and then we go plastic free paper packaging, which isn't, you know, so we add value to things like that. But as we grow, we're reducing prices. Some things like cumin, my goodness, the price of cumin is just going every couple of months, 10%, 15%. Really? Why is that? Just because of weather, bad crops. Yeah. Wow.
Dr Rupy: That's affecting everything, isn't it? Cacao beans, olive oil.
Ren: Everything. Yes. Sugar, wheat.
Dr Rupy: Climate change?
Ren: Yes. Wow. Um, places where it wasn't going to be raining, it's raining now. You know? So we have to check, we have to change. We, there are certain things that we then, you know, we just stop supplying. So we can't get some of our specialty peppers at the moment. Um, we, we just don't supply them because we can't get them.
Dr Rupy: We've talked a lot about spices that we tend to use in Indian cooking, but you're not just supplying Indian specific spices. You're doing all different types.
Ren: Yeah, everything. We do, we do spices from around the world, South American chilies, for example. Yeah, Szechuan peppercorns. Um, we make a lot of blends, so bespoke blends for recipes for chefs. So they'll give us their recipe. Um, and so for example, Carmel, you know, they've, he's given me his recipes and we make them. Benares. Have you been to Benares?
Dr Rupy: Yeah, Benares is amazing.
Ren: Yeah, so we, we, we supply Benares. So they've, they've given us all their recipes and we make them for them. And they with our spices. So again, with Benares, it's quite interesting.
Dr Rupy: Is that why their falafel is so green? Because they've used your cardamom? I'm telling you.
Ren: But you know, um, they, you know, it's a bit of back and forth, back and forth with flavours and stuff, and they have to get used to our spices as well, because they're so much more vibrant. They have to use less. But they're willing to take that on. And it's really exciting, really exciting to do that sort of, and it's ongoing, you know, ongoing.
Dr Rupy: So look, we're going to start using your spices now. I've made that decision from now. With regards to people who are listening to this and, you know, they, they want to experience some of the things that we've just talked about here. Um, what, you just buy this online?
Ren: Yeah, renspantry.com.
Dr Rupy: Okay, great.
Ren: And, and you know, on purpose, we've made, we've made, you know, we, we sell things in, in these flat packs, because not everyone's got, not everyone's got jars and cupboards that are free. And then everything's colour coded as well. So you've got pink that's masalas, ground spices that are yellow. We've got heat providers in the grey and the teal is whole spices. So you can have a lovely drawer full of spices instead of sellotape. And, uh, yeah, and you can have it all out there, ready.
Dr Rupy: Amazing. Look, I'm really excited to start getting into all these different spices that you've brought us here. And thank you so much for the, the whirlwind tour. I know there's so much more that we can speak about with regards to every spice, you know, you gave us the ground cardamom earlier as well. There's hibiscus you have, there's, you know, sumac, which is one of the world's highest antioxidant rich spices out there. But, uh, you've convinced me on investing more in spices and being a lot more confident and tasting spices. So I really appreciate you coming down.
Ren: Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's been really good. Thank you very much.
Dr Rupy: My pleasure. My pleasure. Blown my mind many a time.
