I t is said that the magic in a cook's hands lies in the way one handles spices. It's indeed amazing how a set of spices, in different permutation and combination, and the same set of spices, in different hands, produces a range of flavours. This alchemy of spices, says a new book, is the secret behind the variety of Indian cooking and why some dishes are so hard to resist.

The Secrets in the Spice Mix, written by India's first MasterChef, Pankaj Bhadouria, picks on this concept and explores a trail of spice mixes across the length and breadth of the country and even overseas. The book is a veritable anthology of masalas, encouraging the reader to make one's mixes, as Bhadouria identifies 50 spice mixes from India and around the world.

Acknowledging that masalas are an integral part of everyday cooking in India, the MasterChef notes in the book's introduction, "From dry masalas to wet pastes, from home-made mixes to offthe-shelf masalas, a fantastic bouquet of spice blends is available across the country!" Touching upon the history of spices in the country, the book talks about how the world knows India for the spices produced. To name two Indian spice mixes, curry powder or garam masala find space in any kitchen or supermarket shelf around the world.

At the same time, Bhadouria points out, the depth and nuance of Indian food cannot be boiled down to generic spice mixes. Across the length and breadth of the country, each community and each region uses special traditional blends of spices to add unique flavours to their food. Various combinations of a range of spices produced in the country serve to make them so different from each other and so distinctive that each becomes a new flavour. "Indian masalas, to me, seem no less than a genie in a bottle, which when opened, enable you to create magic!" writes Bhadouria. The

MasterChef attributes her tryst with various flavours to her mixed cultural heritage and travel across the country. Her Punjabi paternal grandmother and Bengali maternal grandmother ensured an enduring experience of two different food cultures through her childhood. Growing up in Lucknow and with friends from South India and East India in Mumbai, she was exposed to a mind-boggling world of spices.

Bhadouria's book, while it introduces the reader to 50 unique home-made spice mixes, also enlightens one with a brief history of the masala. Recipes that follow the spice mix are lucid and easy to follow. The accompanying photographs of spices and dishes, some of which have been taken by Bhadouria herself, also arouse the foodie in the reader.

As the author herself puts it, while there are several books on spices, there is perhaps none that "glorifies the simple blends" that Indian kitchens use daily