Indian food is not sugar driven but rather spice driven. With delicate amounts of clove, cardamom, pepper, anis-seed, mustard, chilly, turmeric, ginger. garlic and curry leaf the journey of any dish can go in 50 different directions.

Curry is a term in India which is very generic. Indian curries use very complex and many variant spice mixtures for different foods and foods from different parts of India.

The general rules of Indian curries dishes use spice mixture most often of dry or ground spices that are lightly heated in the casserole to mobilize their aromatic and volatile components, which are then captured by adding liquid ingredients to the pot.

The basic spices of Indian dishes vary widely, with every dish having its unique spice mixture (masala in Indian) with variations from cook to cook, as well as from locality to locality.

The Most used spices include cumin seed, turmeric, coriander seed, chili pepper, and ginger, garlic, clove, cinnamon, cardamom, mustard seed, black pepper to name a few.

Heat is based on hot chilis, pepper, ginger, and other spices, and varies greatly, first by region, and secondarily according to the dish and personal taste.

Indian sauces bases are based sometimes on broth like vegetable stocks, but more often on vegetable/fruit juices or purees like tomatoes or a “vegetable gravy” and on ghee (clarified butter) or sometimes on yoghurt to tenderise tougher pieces of meat.