Hi Mamta and everyone on here.

Kavey asked me to link my post I wrote on whether you should dry roast spices or not to make masala.

If you remember Mamta, I came on here about a year ago to ask the question if you dry roasted or not. Your answer added to my curiosity even more and made me go away to try and found out what I could.

Well it has taken me a year to actually write it but I finally have!

http://www.azeliaskitchen.net/blog/dont-dry-roast-spices/

hope it is of interest :)

az?lia

I enjoyed reading your well researched article Azelia. Phew, it is a relief to know that my mum, her mum and her mum before her, were not wrong in keeping their spices raw. I have felt that if you roast spices too much in advance, they do smell nice at the time, but loose their flavour fast. I make a small jar of garam masala or ground roast cumin at a time, roughly the size of a standard Schwartz jars. This lasts me a couple of months. If I roast spices before grinding (have tried it only once I think), they are not much good after a few days.

Mamta

Read the article......something to chew on, what Ms Anjum stated makes sense that during monsoon in india the the whole spices tend to get soggy hence needs slight roasting. Now onwards no dry roasting for me.

Dry roasting is okay if the masala is going to be used straight away or within a couple of days, but when you dry roast them and store them away the aroma has more or less disappeared after a week.

The aroma of dry roasted garam masala reminds me of some sweets I used to have as a child. By now you most probably think I am crazy, but they were small round sticky sweets in a little packet (about five per packets) and they were mixed colours.

The only spice that I dry roast and store in a small jar is white cumin. I dry roast it until it turns quite dark and grind it up. It's lovely sprinkled on potatoes (especially jackets) with a knob of butter. :o)

Thanks for the link to your article az?lia - nicely designed site too.

Seabird, I love Azelia's site, it's one of my favourites, especially if you're interested in making bread at home. A veritable LIBRARY of useful information all backed up by experimentation!

Hi Kavey. Yes I noticed that and I've added it as a favourite. So much to learn - can't wait until I retire so I'll have more time to cook :-)

Hi All

Thanks Kavey, I like asking the question "why?" and I guess it results on my learning journey including all my sourdough discoveries.

az?lia

I've got to say that some things do taste better after dry roasting though... I've recently discovered dry roasted sesame seeds are fantastic... I love sesame in all forms (oil, tahini, seeds etc) and have often added them into bread, on salads, sprinkled on chowmein etc.. even fried them on sesame prawn toast... but the flavour jumps up ten fold when you dry roast them and get some extra toastiness to them.... (I know these aren't traditional "curry" indgredients, I'm just making the point about it changing the flavour)

Steve

what you have written is essentially correct, and mirrors what has been written on this site already, mostly by me!

There seems to be a little confusion between aromas, flavours and tastes. First of all, aroma and flavour are essentially the same, we detect both with our nose, or nasal receptors. Tastes we detect with out taste buds on our tongue.

What you have written about roasting spices is also correct, but I would say that the essenial oils are liberated, some being lost to the atmosphere. But if raw spices (as you call them) are put into a dish, and extracted into oil, as they should be, losses can still occur. The method of distilling fragrances using steam is called steam distillation (no surprise there then!) and effects the distillation of essential oils way below their boiling points. This helps preserve their chemical structures. It relies on the essential oil being liberated from the spice/herb, which then pools on the surface of the water. Bubbles of steam then form around the essential oil, and as the bubbles burst, tiny droplets of oil are carried out of the water, and over into the condenser, propelled by the steam. The same happens with essentail oils in a curry, when the cooking/fat containing the spice essential oils are caried off by water bubbles bursting beneath the oil rich surface. To remedy this loss, it is important to cover the pot, and to simmer so that there are only very few bubbles seen. If you turn the heat up, however, although cooking times will not be shorter, loss of flavour from the dish will result, together with a kitchen full of aroma.

"There seems to be a little confusion between aromas, flavours and tastes. "

Lapis when you say there seems to be a little confusion between aromas, flavours and tastes..who is confused?

I've never been confused about those...not since since 1990 when I met my first mother-in-law who couldn't smell or taste because she fell and knocked her head!

The poor woman could only go by texture, and sourness.

Have always dry-roasted spices for curries, but the article makes sense. But as stated by Anjum Anand, if spices are not roasted, there may be some problem in grinding them -- have often experienced this when trying to fine grind red chillies without roasting. however, an option for red chillies is to soak them in water or vinegar and wet-grind. This won't work for cumin, for instance. Any ideas?

I am not sure which spices Anjum was talking about specifically, but I have not had any problem in grinding unroasted spices, I grind most myself. I don't try to grind dry chillies myself, I would be too worried about them getting everywhere! For chillies, I make do with ready ground packets. I don't grind turmeric roote either, unless I am using fresh one.

Grinding dry turmeric root was enough to almost destroy my old spice grinder - it carried on for a few more grinds, but then the blade snapped clean off!! :o(

As for grinding dried chillies, if you want them to be a fine powder, place them in the oven on a pyrex baking dish (pyrex is best because it holds more heat and speeds up the process) on 130C for about 45 minutes and then grind them in the coffee grinder and they will powder down really well.

Sid

I was watching Heston Blumenthal's new programme "how to cook like heston" on channel 4 last week. It was the episode about how to cook chicken. Anyway he actually said that smell equals lost flavour. So I guess it's right that roasting spices equals lost flavour. I remembered reading this post as soon as I heard him say it.

Savs, I thought the same :-)

Steve

Often there is much sense in wisdom of generations! LOL!?

that is what has been said on here several times, but I suppose until HB has said, no one believes it!