Roasted 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 med-high 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 side-by-side some time, and youll 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