Topic: "wait until the oil starts to separate"

[spiceyokooko]

They are comparable if you do not accept that spices (or their essential oils) can cook.

Can you define what state the extracted essential oils start from and change to then if it's your contention that some kind of change takes place within your definition of 'cooking'?

To make garam masala, one heats the spices dry and then grinds.  If no cooking takes place during the heating, why do we bother ?  Would not the garam masala taste exactly the same if we ground the raw spices ?

Firstly, I would dispute straight away the need to dry heat the spices prior to grinding because to do so completely changes the flavour profile of the spices themselves particularly so when a group of spices such as those used in Garam Masala are heated together. The released volatile oils mingle and merge together to create new aromas and flavours and you have the Maillard toasting and browning reaction to take into consideration as well.

Also please note than in my previous post I did say clearly I was referring to spices fried in hot oil, you're now referring to dry roasted spices, that's not frying spices in hot oil.

Once ground, dry heated spices and non-dry heated spices when fried in hot oil will still only release whatever essential oils and flavours they have into the hot oil. The existing flavours don't change to something else during the cooking process.

In short, dry roasting whole spices and grinding and non-dry roasted ground spices will have completely different flavour profiles - they're not the same flavours.

This linked article explains all this far better than I can: http://www.azeliaskitchen.net/blog/dont-dry-roast-spices/