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Beginners Guide => Trainee Chefs / Beginners Questions => Topic started by: outatime on March 12, 2011, 07:48 PM

Title: Grounding spices?
Post by: outatime on March 12, 2011, 07:48 PM

Hi All

First real post since I have joined.  I am a little confused as to what consistancy grinding spices need to be. 

I used my Magic Bullet today as I read people use coffee grinders to grind with so I test with coriander seeds and it didn't grind down to a powder but more of what looks like sawdust and I wanted to make sure thats ok or if it would cause a problem.

What do you think?   

Thanks

Stuart

Title: Re: Grinding spices?
Post by: Peripatetic Phil on March 12, 2011, 08:02 PM

I wouldn't normally bother to grind my own, unless (a) the recipe called for "freshly ground", or (b) I had no pre-ground but I did have seeds.  That said, I have just tried grinding coriander seed in a Kenwood coffee grinder (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320631609260), grinding for periods of 15 seconds and then resting the grinder so as not to overheat it.  After 15 seconds, I had coarse sawdust; after two minutes, I could see no further improvement (from 1:45, that is), so stopped at that point.  The resulting ground spice was slightly coarser than my pre-ground coriander, but it is possible that commercial spice grinders also sieve as the final stage to remove any remaining husk.  I would have no reservations about using this after 2 minutes of grinding in lieu of pre-ground coriander, and the smell released by the essential oils during the grinding process really made the freshly ground version seem more appetising.

** Phil.