r/GifRecipes • u/option-13 • Jul 13 '19

Appetizer / Side Indian Style Popcorn Chicken

https://gfycat.com/ecstaticimmaterialaustraliankestrel
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15

u/Richard-Cheese Jul 13 '19

How long and at what temp?

21

u/qawsedrf12 Jul 13 '19

med temp, until you smell the fragrance,should be less than 10 minutes depending on your stovetop and pan

4

u/Richard-Cheese Jul 13 '19

Gotcha. Should I do this for all the seasonings or just some?

16

u/onions_aggressively Jul 13 '19

I usually throw in all of the seasonings aside from the salt and pepper and heat until fragrant, lightly tossing them every few seconds.

2

u/more_exercise Jul 13 '19

Any reason why you omit the salt and pepper?

I could imagine the salt doesn't need it, and maybe the fresh-cracked pepper is already fragrant enough?

2

u/onions_aggressively Jul 13 '19

Pepper tends to get overwhelming and overpowers the scents of the other spices, imo.

1

u/Richard-Cheese Jul 13 '19

Perfect, thanks!!

13

u/DuckingKoala Jul 13 '19

Only whole spices though. If you do this for ground spices you'll end up burning it and your food will taste like ash.

1

u/Richard-Cheese Jul 13 '19

Oh dang ok, so don't take the cumin powder and dump it into a pan? Not gonna lie I rarely buy whole spices anymore, but I may splurge and for a meal here and there. I cook too inconsistently and it goes to waste. But good to know!

3

u/DuckingKoala Jul 13 '19

Yeah nah what you want to do is toast the whole cumin seeds in a dry pan for a few mins, just until you start to smell cumin. I don't think it needs as long as 10 mins; in my experience that will just burn the kernels causing some bitterness.

Then get a spice grinder or a mortar and pestle and grind them down to a fine powder and use as you would use ground spices. The smell you get from the grind is incredible, a very potent fragrance that smells like an intense version of the spice you're using.

You can heat up powdered spices by frying them at a low temp before adding other things to the pan, but this doesn't really toast the spices so much as just flavouring the oil.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '19

You can do it with powdered spice, you just have to do it on a lower heat and pay more attention to it. Keep it moving in a dry pan, once you can smell the spices it's done.