Cilantro, cumin, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla are my primary colours
Except from pepper, no spice should be used on its own. In all the world cuisines, as soon as you talk about spices, you talk spices blends. Amongst them are the Chinese five spices, the masala, garam masala and curry in India, the colombos, the Cajun mixes, the ras el hanout and the harissa, the zouta mixes of the Middle-East, and finally, the European four spices.
All these great blends have been created on the same bases, cilantro, cumin, cinnamon, nutmeg and sometimes vanilla. I then add sumac or cardamom to give character to the blend. Then I compose. It is like a second partition in which I play, heckle the original mix by adding hot peppers for example, why not?
http://www.epices-roellinger.com/?lang=en
All these great blends have been created on the same bases, cilantro, cumin, cinnamon, nutmeg and sometimes vanilla. I then add sumac or cardamom to give character to the blend. Then I compose. It is like a second partition in which I play, heckle the original mix by adding hot peppers for example, why not?
http://www.epices-roellinger.com/?lang=en