Roasted Cumin Powder | How To Make Cumin Powder

Roasted Cumin Powder | How To Make Cumin Powder

Author: Rumki Paul
Course: Condiment
Cuisine: World
Preparation Time: 15 minutes (Including the cooling time of the spice)
Cooking time: 5 minutes
Total time: 20 minutes
Servings: N/A

Roasted Cumin powder is the most widely used spice in savoury dishes worldwide. The usage of Cumin powder in Asian food and middle East cuisine is incomparable. But now, the charisma of the spice has spread to the whole world because of its unique flavour and health benefits. It is a very quick and easy DIY Recipe with the help of which you can enhance the flavour of your food.

What Cumin used for is one of the most common and frequently asked questions for those people who never used this magical ingredient. In fact, many of mine British friends have asked me the same question.

Cumin is a flowering plant and its seeds are dried and used as spice for culinary. It is mostly cultivated in Southern Asia and Middle east as well. It is considered one of the oldest spices of the world. It is used in both whole and ground form.

In Indian cuisine, cumin powder has occupied one of the major parts of flavouring food. It is not only limited in savouries but also used in desserts and beverages as well. I know its jaw dropping for many of you who is not very familiar with this spice but it’s true.

Since my childhood, the most common spice that I have seen my mom to use is ‘Cumin’. Most of the times, she used to temper many fish curries and dals with whole cumin seeds. Honestly, I have not seen her to skip Cumin powder from any curry whether its fish or meat, veg or vegan, did not matter. For Chutneys, Achar and Jaljeera powder mix she used to prepare Roasted Cumin powder separately with Cumin seeds. She always used to tell me that Cumin is one of the top priority spices of Bengali kitchen. Always have a spare of this essential ground spice in your pantry.

Roasted Cumin Powder is also known as Bhuna Jeera Powder. Roasted stands for ‘Bhuna’ and Cumin stands for ‘Jeera’. In Hindi, it is renowned as Bhuna Jeera.

DIY Recipe

In today’s world, DIY recipe has become very trendy. There are many valid reasons behind it. One of the main reasons is health awareness. It is only in exchange of little effort that few things we can made better than the market selling goods. Today, though many things are easily available globally but still in many cases DIY Recipe helps a lot to up bring the authenticity of many traditional food.

Roasted Cumin Powder Recipe with step by step photos and instructions have been provided in the ‘Instruction’ section of the recipe. But before directly jumping into the recipe, let me share few interesting facts about the recipe and the hero ingredient ‘Cumin’.

Cumin and Curry

There is an eternal relationship between Cumin and curry in Indian cuisine. Most of the Indian curries are incomplete without Cumin, whether it is vegetarian or non-vegetarian, does not matter. Cumin is always an essential element for the Indian curries. Starting from Chicken curry to Matar Paneer or from Baingan ka bharta to Bengali Fish Curries, redolent Cumin Spice has always completed the dishes with its outstanding flavouring feature.

Cumin Recipes

Cumin recipes are very popular in India especially in North. The taste and flavour of Jeera always takes the dish to its next level. The best part of Cumin spice is that it can easily gel up with any flavoured or unflavoured ingredient. There are many dishes in Indian cuisine where Cumin works as the hero ingredient. Jeera Rice, Aloo-Jeera ki Sabzi, Jal Jeera, Jeera Mathri are the few justified examples of it.

Difference between Cumin Powder and Roasted Cumin Powder?

For many people, Cumin powder meaning is unknown, or they are a bit confused between Cumin powder and Roasted Cumin powder. There is a small difference between two.

The cumin seeds are dried, and ground to make Cumin powder. In early ages, people used to use whole Cumin seeds paste. But nowadays, Cumin powder is easily available in market. It is mostly used in curries, dals etc.

When cumin seeds are dry roasted in tawa or kadai for few minutes and then ground to powder after cooling down, it is known as Roasted Cumin powder. Though both the spices are similar, but they don’t smell the same.

Roasted Cumin powder is the heart of flavouring the Indian street foods especially Chaats. Any Chaat recipe is incomplete without this magical ingredient. In fact, it is used to prepare the chutneys of chaat and jaljeera powder. Roasted Cumin powder is used in almost all the varieties of chaat like Bhelpuri, sevpuri, masala puri, aloo tikki chaat, panipuri, papdi chat, dahi vada, imli ki meethi chutney and many more.

Benefits of Cumin

Cumin water benefits

Many people take cumin water on regular basis because of its multidimensional benefits. I have seen my grand-parents to take Cumin water on regular basis.

How to make Cumin Powder?

To make roasted Cumin powder at home, it is very important to use clean and high-quality Cumin seeds first.

Always use heavy bottom pan like Tawa, Kadai or fry pan to dry roast the Cumin seeds.

First, put the pan on flame and make it completely dry. When the pan gets warm, add the Cumin seeds into the pan and dry roast them for couple of minutes in medium low flame.

It is very important to stir the seeds vigorously during the time of dry roasting. It helps to roast the seeds evenly or else they can burn or get over roasted from the bottom side.

One more thing that is very important to understand in this recipe is to know how much you need to roast the Cumin seeds to get the perfect Roasted Cumin powder. Over roasted or under roasted Cumin seeds may spoil the flavour of the ground spice. The easiest way to understand about it is that while the cumin seeds change their colour slightly, you will get a nice soothing redolent flavour of it. It is the best time to switch off your flame.

After that, immediately transfer the roasted seeds on a completely dry plate. It is one more important part of the process because the Cumin seeds get over roasted if you keep it in the tawa or pan to rest.

Transfer the Cumin seeds into the jar of a grinder when they will completely cool down or else you will get damp ground cumin. Grind them for a minute till they become fine and smooth dust. In old days, people used to grind the roasted spice using mortar and pestle.

Ingredients:

• 250 Grams Whole Cumin seeds

1. Take a pan on flame and put the flame in medium low.
2. Let the pan become completely dry.
3. Add Cumin seeds into the pan and dry roast it in medium low flame for 3-4 minutes until the Cumin seeds change the colour slightly. Stir the Cumin seeds continuously with the help of a wooden spatula.
   

4. When the Cumin seeds are done, you will get a nice redolent flavour from it. Switch off the flame and transfer the Cumin seeds on a dry plate.
   

5. Spread the Cumin seeds on plate and let it rest until the spice cools down completely.
6. Transfer the Cumin seeds into a small jar of the grinder and grind it till dust for a minute.
   
   

7. Transfer the powder in an airtight container and keep it with your kitchen essentials.