Spice Kitchen Indian Spice Tin Review

Reviewed by Claire Giles

Both myself and my husband love Indian food and I have tried cooking various Indian dishes before, though with mixed results. Saturday night is curry night in our house where I usually end up cooking 2 / 3 curries due to the kids liking milder curries such as Korma, whilst myself and my husband like spicier curries like masala or dhansak. My oldest daughter’s favourite is Chicken biryani which I have tried making at home using a couple of different recipes found online but never seem to get the taste right. Indian recipes tend to involve a lot of spices which I tend to buy in the little glass jars from the supermarket. These jars can be quite large and I often find that the contents inside go hard ( involving me then trying to hammer it apart with the end of a spoon ) or expire before I use it all. I often find that no matter how many spices I seem to have I’ll always be missing one I need for the Indian dish I want to cook!

The Spice Kitchen Indian Spice Tin contains 9 fragrant spices in a stainless steel storage tin. The tin is wrapped in a lovingly handmade silk sari gift wrap which gives it a very authentic look.

Spice Kitchen is a “family run artisanal spice and tea company run by a mother and son team Sanjay & Shashi Aggarwal. Started over a kitchen table, and centred around Shashi, who has over 50 years of cookery expertise and knowledge”

On opening the storage tin lid, which has a perspex lid to ensure freshness, the first thing that hit me was the amazing smell from all the spices. It smelt simply divine. Inside are seven removable tins for you to store your different spices in. The actual spices are in little resealable packs placed inside the tins.

The Indian Spice Tin (or Masala Dabba as it is traditionally known) is a staple in every Indian kitchen and contains the core spices needed to make virtually every Indian curry. I had never seen something like this before. Spices in mainstream supermarkets just tend to be bought individually. The tin is such a good idea especially as an Indian cookery starter pack. Each spice blend is made fresh in small batches and then sealed for optimum freshness and flavour. Also included is a small metal spoon to help you accurately measure out the spices with.

Spices included are:
Garam Masala 20g
Chilli Powder 20g
Cumin Seeds 20g
Ground Coriander 20g
Turmeric Powder 20g
Mustard Seeds 20g
Cassia 5g
Cardamom 2g
Cloves 1g

A little label on each spice bag explained a bit more about each spice, where it comes from and what its best used for which was really useful to know.

Included was a small Indian Recipe Guide with 12 recipes inside to get you started. More recipes could be found on the Spice Kitchen website.

After a quick trip to the supermarket for fresh ingredients I used the recipe from the enclosed Indian Recipe Guide to make chicken biryani. This is a dish that I have tried before but never seem to get quite right. I can honestly say after following the method in the recipe guide and using the spices from the tin that this time it was a resounding success. It was honestly so tasty and flavoursome. My kids all loved it which is praise indeed as they are quite fussy eaters. Then I made chicken masala using the recipe that I normally follow but substituted the normal jar spices that I normally use with the ones from the spice tin. This honestly made such a difference to the taste. It was really delicious.

Spice refills are available on the Spice Kitchen website starting from £1.75 for a 20g bag or from £3 for a 100g bag depending what spice you want to refill. This may seem expensive compared to supermarket spice prices but the quality is so much better and is definitely worth paying that little bit extra for.

I especially liked all the little personal touches from this family run small business like the silk sari giftwrap and the little personalised card in the box. It seemed like a lot of thought and care had gone into everything even down to the email address which is soldwithlove@spicekitchenuk.com. For every spice tin purchased, a % of the money is donated to the Akshaya Patra Foundation to help fight malnourishment and end the poverty cycle forever both in India and those affected by homelessness in the UK.

On the Spice Kitchen website there is a whole range of spice tins available to purchase for all different styles of cooking. There is also a Spice Kitchen subscription service you can sign up to where each month you will receive a different selection of spices along with 12 recipes that have been specifically created by the Spice Kitchen family to help you create recipes from around the world. This costs £40 for 3 months or £70 for 6 months.

I can’t wait to try more recipes using the spices and expand my Indian cooking repertoire. This would make an ideal gift for many occasions from an Indian cooking novice to get started or an experienced cook to add that edge to their Indian cooking. Costing £30 it is an affordable luxury that will really take your Indian cooking to the next level.

Rating: 5/5

RRP: £30

This product can be purchased from spicekitchenuk.com