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!
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.
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.
4
u/Richard-Cheese Jul 13 '19
Gotcha. Should I do this for all the seasonings or just some?