Recipe - Roasted Cumin

Raw cumin

Most indians do not buy the stuff because it looses so much flavor (much
like fresh ground pepper vs packaged ground pepper). instead, what i do is
to buy raw cumin (ask them to sell you good quality "zeera" if you go to an
indian store). to roast them, in a heavy skillet/frying pan, put in a
handful (crushing them slightly by rubbing them between the palms of your
two hands) and then over medhigh heat roast them dry, shaking the skillet
a lot, until they are dark brown in color (but not black, over roasting
them will turn them black). use immediately as is. (ps: crushing the raw
cumin is really important to bring out the nice flavor of cumin, try a
sidebyside some time, and you'll see what i mean. this tip is courtesy of
our family cook in india, who likes to load everything he cooks with
cumin).

For some dishes, like raita (raita == slightly whipped yougurt + favorite
veges, like cukes, onions, tomatoes etc + roasted cumin powder + salt +
pepper) you need to powder it. what i do is to put the roasted cumin on my
cutting board, and with a roller pin go over it, and they powder with
almost no effort.

bang: uunet!cadence!bammijwahar r. bammi domain: bammi@cadence.com
GEnie:J.Bammi CIS: 71515,155

From the Fatfree Digest, Vol. 8, No. 43, June 4, 1994 Formatted by Sue
Smith, S.Smith34, TXFT40A@Prodigy.com using MMCONV

File ftp://ftp.idiscover.co.uk/pub/food/mealmaster/recipes/fatfreex.zip