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Yes, unfortunately you just have to chew carefully sometimes. When making a dish for company we will sometimes do our best to fish them all out if we can, but depending on the thickness of the curry finding those 7 cloves, 3 cardamom pods, and 4 peppercorns can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. The cinnamon stick however is usually so big its not a problem, we like to sometimes stand it up against the edge of the serving dish as a garnish.

However there are some recipes such as palak paneer that we puree the whole spices in a blender with the cooked spinach and onions before we continue to build the curry. That is something you should wait to experiment with until you get more comfortable and familiar with the process of building a good curry and can predict how it will effect the texture etc.

sorry just wanted to clarify my comment, when we puree whole spices with other cooked ingredients, the whole spices are already fried and have been cooking with the other ingredients before being put in the blender, they are not raw.

For me, cardamom pods are worth fishing out. You bite into one of those suckers and you're hit with this overwhelming floral aromatic sensation - not completely pleasant.

I leave them in there whole! Most of them are big enough that you won't get a spoonful of it, plus it takes an awful long time to fish all the bits out.

I find it depends on the audience. Some people know to recognize the whole spices and fish them out themselves. Others (like my bf) think that everything that makes it to the plate should be edible.

I find star anise pods are rather unpleasant to bite into.

JenPDX, does cardamom make your mouth go numb, too? I bit into a whole one on purpose out of curiosity and my tongue tingled for a while after. Very strange.

I leave them in and give everyone a heads up. I can't imagine trying to remove them.

Ugh -- I *hate* when people leave the spices in!!!

I always wondered if it would be effective to put them in whole but leave them in a tea strainer or cheesecloth or something (so you can get all the flavor without having to pick through your curry for spices).

Has anyone ever tried this?

@ Aoede - not sure if this would work. You would surely have to fry them in oil first before putting them in a tea strainer or something. Im not sure if it would effectively flavor the dish unless it was very watery at some point more like a soup. Most curries I think are too thick for there to be enough flavor seeping in and out of something like that.

Interesting idea tho it might be worth a try. I know that can work really well for a soup.

I always remove them when I serve and later when I put leftovers in the refrigerator. My Indian dishes tend to be light in color though, so I think it'd be harder to find everything in a darker one.

Biting into a cardamom pod is surprisingly gross. I *love* cardamom, but ewww. I am in favor of taking the big stuff out, if possible.

Seeds can be left whole: fennel, coriander, cumin and mustard.

Pods and bark like cardamom, star anise and cinnamon should be taken out.

Peppercorns most decidely *do not* just 'disappear.' Having said that, I prefer to leave them in. I just haven't found a way to keep the spices separate during cooking that results in the best flavor.

If you eat so fast you chomp on a star anise or cinnamon stick, your curry is obviously not hot enough. I suggest adding more chiles, I mean capsicums.

However, if you're freaked out by cardamom pods, you could try taking out the seeds (and maybe using just a little less than the recipe calls for). Biting a single seed is much less intense than the whole pod.

My Bengali mother-in-law (amazing cook) leaves them all in. So I'm guessing it's traditional to do so.

You get used to it, really. Soon it becomes no more odd than eating a fish with bones, olives, or any other kind of food that involves eating one part and not eating the other. A lot of dishes also involve meats with the bone still in, so you get used to picking through and not just chomping down without looking.

Very traditional food is sometimes eaten with hands, which I suspect is the reason it was no big deal to leave large spices in - when you're feeling around with your fingers instead of a fork, it's easy to tell when you've run into a big seed pod.

If it bugs you quite a bit, you might be able to fry the spices, then either do the grinding trick or put them in a very thin cheesecloth during the cooking.

In Malaysia, although we usually leave the spices whole in curry, for soup, there is another way to keep the seeds off - it is easier to take things like cardamom and cinnamon stick out - by using a little muslin parcel. We call it sup bunjut - bunjut referrign to the little parcel.
I have a post on hwo to do this using a tea strainer in my blog - a lot handier and when you make it yourself it is easier to keep the spices gfresh too!
http://lekkertje.blogspot.com/2009/03/mixing-your-own-malaysian-soup-spice.html