Written by: Jess
Every month or so there's a big meeting up in the kitchen deciding what kind of recipe should go into the upcoming spiceboxes. Alice, Matt and James take into consideration any recent Spicery travels that have brought back recipes, and any particular ideas they've had or heard, as well as what time of year the recipe is for and what else those subscribers are due to receive, to ensure a good balance of dishes. Once it's all in the timetable, Alice and Matt divvy up the recipes and get started!
It starts with recipe research - gathering information from sources, books, notes from travels, and online. At the meeting a vague plan is created (eg. A Kashmiri lamb curry, maybe something fried alongside it) but then Alice and Matt do a lot of research to put together a recipe to test.
Even if the main concept of the meal is clear, this might mean researching side dishes used in that region, chutney recipes, or how to substitute different ingredients with what we have access to here in the UK. Once that's done, we just have to order the ingredients from the supermarket, and get cooking! Measuring out the spices is the first part of prepping the meal: they head down to the warehouse with a set of measuring spoons and get to work.
A spicebox recipe typically has 6-8 different bags of spices, most ground but one or two whole spices. These could have anything from 1 to 20 different spices in - perhaps 3 tbsp of urfa chilli flakes in one bag, then the next might contain 1/4 tsp of cracked black pepper, 1/4 tsp of cracked toasted cumin, 1/2 tsp oregano and 1 tsp sumac.
Time to test! The dish gets cooked, with notes made and the instructions adjusted along the way. Perhaps 15 minutes wasn't long enough for the chutney to reduce fully; maybe it needs a little sugar to balance the flavour; don't forget to pre-heat the oven!
James, Alice and Matt (and a few lucky staff) test the meals at lunchtime thinking about flavour, heat levels, and the balance of the meal. Does it taste authentic? Does it look like the one you had in India? Does it need a pinch more salt? Do the sides complement the dish? What about a mint chutney instead of tomato? Is the sauce thick enough? Does it look appetising?
Then the recipe gets updated...and the next week it gets tested again!
And again, and again, until we're really happy with it. Some take longer than others to get to this stage, and some recipes never make it past this stage (we'll come back to them some day...). And then Alice and Matt swap recipes and cook each other's dish, or Andrea comes up to the kitchen to cook it.
On the final kitchen test, the recipe is photographed. We have a permanent recipe photography setup in the kitchen and lots of brightly coloured plates and dishes just for this!
Time for home testing! To make sure the recipes work when cooked in other kitchens, by non-expert chefs, the spice blends are taken home and cooked by a staff member in their own kitchen, and by James in his kitchen. This helps us pull out inconsistences, errors, or confusion points!
And once all this is done and we're 100% happy with it, we start making spice blends and designing the recipe cards ready to send them out the door. Happy spicing!
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