Spices

Product Details

Cumin is used mainly where highly spiced foods are preferred. It is an ingradient of most curry powders and many savoury spice mixtures, and is used in stews, grills-especially lamb and chicken dishes. It gives bite to plain rice, and to beans and cakes. Small amounts can be usefully used in aubergine and kidney bean dishes. Cumin is essential in spicy Mexican foods such as chile con carne, casseroled pork and enchiladas and kidney bean dishes.

Coriander is commonly found in Middle Eastern, Indian and Latino cooking. In the US, people often use the subtle sweetness of coriander to flavor breads, pastries, cookies, corned beef and sausages.

Both an herb and a spice are produced by the coriander plant. The leaf is known as cilantro, and coriander seeds are collected when the plant goes to seed.

Coriander seed is one of the sweeter spices out there, which is odd considering the leaf of the coriander plant – what we call cilantro – is often called spicy and herbal. It is often described as sweet and floral with hints of white pepper and Navel orange. You might call it cultivated, both in agricultural and worldly senses.

The flavors make coriander a popular spice across all oceans, from Portugal to Mexico, to India. It’s also become a popular flavor in beer. For clever cocktails, make a simple syrup spiked with toasted coriander seed.

Turmeric is the boiled, dried, cleaned and polished rhizomes of Curcuma Longa. Turmeric has been grown in India since ancient times. Turmeric was probably cultivated at first as a dye, and then became valued as a condiment as well as for cosmetic purpose.

Turmeric is used to flavor and to color foodstuffs. It is principal ingredient in curry powder. Turmeric oleoresin is used in brine pickles and to some extent in mayonnaise and relish formulations, non-alcoholic beverages, gelatins, butter and cheese etc. The color curcumin extracted from turmeric is used as a colorant. Turmeric is also used a s a dye in textile industry. It is used in the preparation of medicinal oils, ointments and poultice. It is stomachic, carminative, tonic, blood purifier and an antiseptic. It is used in cosmetic. The aqueous extracts have bio pesticidal properties.

Fennel yields both a herb and a spice. All plant parts are edible; roots, stalks and leaves, with the spice coming from the dried seeds. A native to the Mediterranean, Fennel is an ancient and common plant known to ancient Greeks and spread throughout Europe by Imperial Rome. It is also grown in India, the Orient, Australia, South America and has become naturalized in the US. It has been called “meeting seed” by the Puritans who would chew it during their long church Services.

As a herb, fennel leaves are used in French and Italian cuisine’s in sauces for fish and in mayonnaise. In Italy fennel is also used to season pork roasts and spicy sausages, especially the Florentine salami finocchiona. It is traditionally considered one of the best herbs for fish dishes. The English use fennel seeds in almost all fish dishes, especially as a court bouillon for poaching Fish and seafood. It is used to flavour breads, cakes and confectionary.