Goda Masala

This is a kind of mixture of red chilly powder with spices, fresh coriander, fried onions and many other ingredients. It is used in almost all the dishes that we prepare at our home. I learnt this recipe from my mother, who keeps getting best reviews for this masala, year after year. Visitors at our home don't leave without asking for some of it for their use.

It is an invloved task, but simplifies everyday cooking as we can make delicious food without much effort. One thing to be very particular about is that all the ingredients should be water free. This is necessary so that we can store the masala for many days.

However, if one does not want to go through preparing Goda masala, and yet wants to use my upcoming recipes, they can do so by substituting it with red chilly powder + garam masala in 1 : 1 proportion, plus add 1/2 tspn of ginger garlic paste. This will give almost identical taste.

Ingredients:
1 kg Red chilly powder ( chilly powder that suits your taste and stomach)

250 gm Garlic
250 gm Ginger
500 gm Onion

Spices:
30 nos Cloves
6 nos Bayleaf
6 nos Tirphal
15 nos Mace ( It is the outer cover of the Nutmeg)
1 nos Jaiphool
1 nos Jaiphal
20 nos Elaichi
25 nos Black pepper
4 tspn Khuskhus
10 tspn White Til
2 tspn Shaha Jeera
5 tspn Jeera
4 tspns Mustard seeds
2 tspn Methi seeds
2 inch Dalchini stick
200 gm Coriander seeds


Others:
1 nos Dry coconut
2 cups fresh coriander
2 tspn Asafoetida
200 gm salt
2 tblspn Oil

Procedure:

1. Wash the coriander leaves and spread them on a cloth and soak the water away.


2. Wash and peel ginger, dry the water off. Cut into small pieces.


3. Grate the dry coconut, and stir fry it till it on sim till it is very light yellow in color.


4. On one side, heat the oil in a big wok and add the onions. Keep stirring in between . This is the most time consuming part as we need them to be light brown. It can be done in parallel with other activities.


5. On other side, take each spice and lightly heat it. This makes them crisp. Also, heating the spices enhances their aroma and taste.


6. Once the onions are light brown(means the water content in the onion is gone), turn the burner off. Let the onions cool down. Mix all the heated spices, garlic, ginger, coriander leaves, coconut. Grind this mixture in batches to a very smooth paste, adding little salt to each batch. Do not add water.


7. Spread the red chilly powder onto a big dry plastic sheet or a big plate. Add the ground paste. Ensure that the paste is cool, because the warm/hot paste would create moisture into the masala.


8. Wear some clean, dry plastic gloves and rub the chilly powder with the paste so that all ingredients mix well.


9. Leave it for 10 mins and then store it into an air-tight glass jar.

You can even serve it as a chutney powder by speading it with some ghee over chapati or jowar rotis.