A bit of a grind

[Ian S.]

Hi, all.

I'm having a curry cook-up this weekend to coincide with a barby on Sunday (so I can try out some smoky onions in the mix).  As I was buying some ingedients this morning, a thought occurred to me:

Are you guys still roasting and grinding your own spices, or do you use factory-ground?  I gave up roasting about two years ago (apart from home-mixed garam masala), but still grind at home.  Partly because (I'm told) whole spices keep for much longer, so it makes economic sense to me.  But I can't get the spices anywhere near as fine as factory ground in my little coffee-grinder.

Plus, it hadn't occured to me to use factory ground curry powders - Rajah mild madras, for example - until I joined this site, and people said they'd been told by BIR chefs that they use them themselves.

Those of you fortunate enough to have been in BIR kitchens and talked with chefs - did you see any evidence of factory ground (i.e. packaged and labelled) spices like cumin and coriander knocking about?

The guy in the market who I buy spices from said that his supplier also supplies his local takeaway.  I've forgotten exactly what the company's called but it's something like T.R.S. - sound familiar to anyone?

[Curry King]

The last chef I spoke to said Rajah and other packet spices are fine and Im sure others have been told\seen similar.

[DARTHPHALL]

I buy TRS from http://www.simplyspice.co.uk/index.php?index.php=
They have a large range etc. & are cheap.

[Dylan]

I reckon a takeaway/restaurant would have a high enough turn over that preground spices wouldn't have time to go stale (unlike most of us home cooks).

[bryan@232]

The usual restaurant spices are ground coriander, turmeric, cumin, curry powder, paprika, chilli, garam masala. Chilli and paprika are best not kept for too long, the others keep reasonably well as long as they are sealed {keep moisture out}, kept fairly cool and preferably in the dark. {UV light is bad news with most perishables}  Old, stale chilli and paprika can  taint your curry. Very old curry powder is probably best avoided.

[Mark J]

I only buy whole spices and then grind them as needed, I only roast my home made garam masala.

Having said that I bet it doesnt make a difference as long as you dont keep factory ground spices for too long (pat chapman showed me 2 identical jars of natco spices, one was a year old and the difference in colour was amazing)

[bryan@232]

Probably bleached by sunlight - UV light again.

[merrybaker]

I always seem to get a burned taste when I roast whole spices.? Probably my lack of attention to the pan at the critical point.? ? Anyway,? it made my curries worse, rather than better.? So now I mail-order bulk spices, and they are very fresh and very economical, even with postage factored in.

[DARTHPHALL]

The burnt taste means you have over cooked the spices, you need only heat them so that they release their taste via the oil of the seed etc...etc...

[Blondie]

Hi All,

The chef at the Kushi (see other thread) told me that a lot of people get a burned taste when trying to roast and grind thier own spices because they may roast them for the correct time but then the grinder will produce considerable heat and therefore overcook the spices.  The obvious answer is to roast for a little less time than you think is needed and let the roasting finish off in the heat of the grinder.

Hope this helps,

Blondie