Spices Part 3: Whole Spices
The joy of imparting flavour through whole spices.
Taking the lid from a pot of fragrant pilau rice at the end of cooking releases delightful clouds of aromatic steam. The flavours of the spices mingle so beautifully with the intensely savoury and appetising flavour of the basmati. When I make pilau rice (another example of us brits naming a thing twice, as with chai tea (tea tea), naan bread (bread bread)) I first heat a small amount of coconut oil in the pan to which I add a few cloves, 3 cardamom pods, a stick of cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric, allowing them to baste a little in the oil before adding the rice and 1.5 times the volume of rice in water, stir well, bring to a hard boil, add a generous pinch of salt, stir well again before reducing the heat to almost nothing, popping on the lid and leaving it all to cook for 10 minutes.
Conveniently, if you have fussy eaters, while the rice is cooking the steam pushes the spices up to lie on top of the rice, making them easy to fish out. Sometimes I add just turmeric to the pot. Sometimes turmeric and a tablespoon of coriander seeds. Sometimes a little ground cinnamon and allspice, whole cumin and coriander seeds. The ground cinnamon imparts flavour very differently to the cinnamon bark in the pilau described above. The whole spice steams and infuses flavour via the cooking vapour, a ground spice will infiltrate every corner of the pot and every grain, and will cook along with the rice rather than steam through it, making for a different flavour note - it is worth trying both to see which you prefer.
There is a lovely delicacy to the flavours of whole spices when they are cooked with rice in this way. I love that you get these little pockets of intense flavour around where the spices have nestled during cooking. There’s something special in the dappled nature of the flavouring throughout the rice dish as you eat it.
Cooking with whole spices is an international practice - even in the UK cloves are put whole in pease pudding and apple pie. Many cuisines start a dish by flavouring the cooking oil with whole spices before cooking off the ubiquitous onions & garlic.
Often a recipe will begin with the addition of whole black or brown mustard seeds, with a warning that the seeds will pop as they cook and may fly out of the pan. They pop as the shells of these tiny flavour bombs split open. Once split they can really begin to add their flavours to the oil. Mustard needs a very high temperature to crack their shells, a temperature most other seeds would burn at. This is why they tend to go in the pan alone at the start of cooking, often followed by cumin seeds which will be cooked for the shortest time before the onions go in, so lowering the temperature of the oil and allowing everything to calm down and cook gently.
Sometimes a recipe will start very much like the pilau one above with cardamom pods, cloves and cinnamon bark going in first, maybe with a bay leaf or 2, some curry leaves. I believe that spices cooked this way impart their flavour twice, once in the tempering (flavouring) of the oil, next as they remain in the pot while all the other ingredients are added and their flavour steams and broils its way about, building in intensity. Sometimes there is a third occasion, when a whole spice makes its way onto a fork and into a mouthful of food. I know a lot of people struggle with this, I used to dislike it, but now find I enjoy the brief moment of intensity when you bite down on a clove or cardamom pod. I like to add whole fennel and cumin seeds in my bhaji and pakora batters for just this reason - the joy of the bite down on a seed and the sudden burst of flavour when you are munching away on an onion bhaji is delightful!
As discussed in Issue 2 of Spice, no spice likes to be cooked too hard and too high. You must always be watchful and careful when cooking spices as they will all turn bitter and unpalatable if caught even a little, this goes for when they are being cooked in a dry pan before grinding or in oil before being added to a dish.
Flavouring of oil with whole spices can happen at the end of cooking as well as the beginning and again this is a practice that occurs around the world. Tempering oil - making a tarka - is one of my favourite things to do - there are dishes that are finished with oil tempered with sliced garlic, pine nuts & fresh herbs; whole dried chilli, mustard & cumin seeds; cinnamon bark, curry leaves, garlic & ginger….there is literally no limit to what can be added to a tarka to transfer an extra layer of flavour to a dish - I encourage everyone to have a play. Here is a post I did on Instagram about Tarkas as part of my 35 Condiments in 35 Days challenge - if you would like to make a tarka with me I talk about them in every single one of my cookery workshops! I am rather fond of them!
Lastly in this issue let’s look at Panch Phoran, Bengali 5 Spice, a rare thing - a blend made with whole spices - the ingredients are equal quantities of fennel seeds, cumin seeds, black onion (nigella) seeds, fenugreek seeds and black mustard seeds - it is delicious and below is a really quick recipe for one of my favourite ways to use it.
The next free issue of Spice: Sweet Spice will be out in April.
Happy cooking, and as always if you cook any of the recipes here, I would love to hear how you get on.
Chloe x
Cabbage with Panch Phoran
1/4 tsp each of cumin, fennel, black onion, black mustard & fenugreek seeds
1 tbsp olive, coconut or peanut oil
1 cabbage, shredded into 5mm strips and washed, leave a little of the water on the leaves to aid with the cooking
Heat a thick bottomed frying pan or wok with a lid on a medium heat.
Add the oil and once hot add the whole spices, lower the heat and cook for 1-2 minutes until you can smell the spices and they are starting to colour ever so slightly.
Add the cabbage and stir-fry for 8-10 minutes, covering every now and then with the lid, until softened and slightly charred and caught in places.