The Spice Market

Welcome to the Spice Market

Welcome to the Spice Market! Driven by a love of cooking and an overflowing spice cupboard I created the Spice Market to share the joy that spices can bring to a meal.

I often found that supermarket spices were samey, lacked umph and spice blends could often contain more salt than spice, so I started to make my own spice blends and source great quality spices, organic where possible.

I make and sell home ground spice blends using high quality, predominantly organic spices. I decided to sell spices in two sizes: 50g and small “try it” 20g sized spice packs to help you get creative in the kitchen without having to stock up on bags and boxes of spices. My small, but growing range is available to buy on etsy, it's called thespicemarket and my “Middle Eastern Try it sized trio” is a fun place to start!

I’ve gathered some ideas for cooking with the spices, please let me know in the comments section if you’ve tried them or if you have other ideas and recipes.

The Spice Market is proud to have a 5 start food hygiene rating from Waltham Forest

Za’atar

A Middle Eastern blend of organic toasted sesame seeds, thyme and tangy sumac. I'm really proud that my Za'atar won 2 stars at this years Great Taste competition! Comments from the judges included:

This is an interesting blend that is zingy, hot, warm, toasty and tangy. The Aleppo is well judged and the combination is balanced and crowd pleasing!" ....."Attractively presented, it is impressive that the spices have been roasted and ground individually by hand. It is well-balanced with the taste of every ingredient coming through. This could be sprinkled on any dish"

I am a little bit obsessed with Fattoush salad dressing, it’ a rustic country style salad from Syria and Lebanon. It’s so simple to make it using my hand blended Za’atar and it turns a simple salad into something special. Check out the recipe here and don’t forget to buy some of my Sumac too to make this recipe.
I think Ottolenghi and Claudia Roden opened the door to Middle Eastern spices for a lot of us here in the UK. Here is a brilliant salmon and Zatar recipe which also calls for Sumac so SpiceMarket has you covered with both. Ottolenghi’s Zaatar salmon and tahini recipe
Try baking feta cheese with honey and Za'atar
Another great and simple way to use Za’atar is to mix it with oil and use as a dip for Arabic bread.

Za’atar contains nuts (sesame seeds)

Sumac

A tart and fruity Middle Eastern spice

As well as using Sumac in the Fattoush salad dressing recipe there are many other ways to use this spice. Sumac is made from ground dried berries and it has a lemony tartness. You can use it in place of lemon and sprinkle it on grilled fish, other ideas are to:

Mix with yoghurt, chopped red onion and coriander for a dip
Or try John Torode’s chicken with sumac, lemons and spiced yoghurt

Barberries

Dried sweet-and-sour berries used in Iranian cooking

Before you use your barberries soak them for 10 minutes in just boiled water to rehydrate them, drain them and they’re good to go, plump, tart and ruby coloured.

I recently fell in love with these sweet and sour berries after trying Diana Henry’s roast squash and feta pilaf, it’s amazing! I will add my version of this recipe soon
They are also essential for Persian jewelled rice
Or how about trying your hand at making kuku’s? Best way to describe them is an Iranian omelette