Ground Cumin - Freshly Milled

There is an honest case for ground cumin and an honest case against it, and you should have both before you choose. Against: cumin's aroma lives in volatile oils that begin escaping the moment the seed is broken, so ground cumin has a shorter useful life than whole seed and will never smell quite as vivid as seed you toast and crush yourself. For: ground cumin disperses instantly and evenly through a mixture, which is a thing whole seed simply cannot do, and for a great many dishes that is the property that actually matters.

Consider what Egyptian cooking does with it. Ta'ameya - the fava bean fritter that is Egypt's own falafel - needs the cumin distributed through the paste, not sitting in it as discrete seeds. Kofta needs it worked evenly through the meat. A dry rub needs it to coat. Koshari's sauce, a marinade, a spice mix for roast chicken: all of these want powder. Reaching for whole seed in those cases means grinding it anyway, and most people, most evenings, do not.

So the sensible answer is not one or the other. It is both, used for different things: whole seed for anything you toast in a pan and for the longest storage life, ground for anything mixed, rubbed or coated. If you only want one, the ground jar is the one that gets used on a Tuesday.

This is Egyptian cumin, from the same Middle Egyptian growing regions as the whole seed in our range - Assiut, Minya and Beni Suef. Egypt is a serious cumin country, and the flavour reflects it: warm, earthy and slightly bitter with a resinous edge, driven by cuminaldehyde with pinene and terpene notes behind it.

Ground cumin needs a little care in the pan. Whole seed can take thirty to sixty seconds of dry heat quite happily. Powder cannot - it has vastly more surface area and it scorches in seconds, turning acrid in a way that cannot be rescued. Add it to fat rather than to a dry pan, keep the heat moderate, and give it ten to twenty seconds before the liquid goes in. If you are making a rub or a batter, no heat is needed at all.

Use more than you think for Egyptian dishes and less than you think for European ones. Cumin is the dominant note in ta'ameya, in kofta, in the spice mix for mahshi and in most Egyptian home cooking; a teaspoon or more is normal. In a stew where it is meant to sit underneath other flavours, a quarter teaspoon is plenty.

Outside Egypt it does an enormous amount of work: it is in chilli con carne, in taco seasoning, in garam masala, in berbere, in Mexican and Tex-Mex cooking generally, in hummus, and in the ras el hanout and baharat blends of the wider region. It is one of the two or three most useful ground spices you can own.

Cumin has a long history of traditional use in Egypt, including as an infusion, and that is offered here as a description of the custom rather than as a health claim, and it is not medical advice.