Have a pantry full of ground spices and feel like they taste…well…stale? Ground spices have a shelf life of about three to four years, but sometimes they just don’t pack that punch of flavor you desire, and that’s because they’ve lost their fragrance. Before you start cooking or clearing out your spice cabinet, use this simple technique to make spices have a fresher taste and aroma. With this trick, you’ll be able to use up any old spice without shelling out the big bucks for a brand new pantry of staple ingredients.
The secret to your next best chili or pot roast dinner? Bloom your spices. Even if you’re an experienced cook, blooming spices isn’t really common in recipes. When you go through a recipe, you add spices later or at the end, but when you bloom spices, you work with the spices at the beginning of a recipe (don’t worry it’s actually a pretty simple thing to do).
Take the ground spices and mix them with a bit of water, forming a paste. In the cooking vessel (pot, pan, etc.) heat the oil over medium heat and then add the paste, cooking until the water evaporates and the paste starts to dry out. Once done you can set the paste aside and then add it to the dish as you cook. The whole process takes at most a few minutes, but the results are phenomenal.
This technique is commonly used in Indian cuisine to toast and develop whole unground spices, but it works just as well with our everyday ground spices. Ingredients like cumin and chili flakes have a completely different flavor and dried rosemary will taste and smell like you picked it right off the tree. Try this trick for your next dish and you’ll easily taste a delicious difference!