Freshly Gound Spices

Posted by Timothy Dzurilla Sep 9, 2008

Cumin is one of the more common spices in Latin cooking that you can grind in your own kitchen. After you try this little trick out for yourself, you will never go back to using preground spices.

To grind spices, you can use a mortar and pestle, but it is much faster to use a coffee grinder. Some people keep two coffee grinders in their kitchens –one for coffee and one for spices– to ensure the flavors do not get confused and muddled in the processs of sharing. This is a waste of time, space, and money in my opinion.

To make sure your flavors do not get mixed up, you can grind a small handful of dry rice. The grinding of the rice will remove any of the spice or coffee that is left in the grinder. Once you have a clean spice grinder, or mortar and pestle you are ready to grind your spices.

• To start, purchase whole cumin seed. Some recipes call for using whole cumin seed, but it is more common to see ground cumin.
• Toast the cumin see in a hot skillet. To do this, just drop a small handful of the seeds into a hot pan without any oil. Shake the pan to ensure you do not burn your seeds. You will know when the seeds are toasted when they become fragrant (your nose will certainly let you know).
• Transfer the toasted seeds to your grinding machine or choice and grind to a fine powder.

It is best to roast and grind your spices as close to the time of use, but you can make a little jar of ground cumin for yourself that will still taste pretty good for up to a week.