I’ve started grinding my own spices for vegetable soup with a mortal and pestle. I really like the added flavor, but I’m having a lot of problems grinding a few specific spices.
I usually grind a mix of different spices at once like cardamom seeds, coriander, mustard seeds, fennel seeds, chili and caraway. I find some spices very hard to grind this way. Cardamom seeds especially stays intact as hard small stone like seeds. Is there a specific technique I’m missing, or would grinding cardamom separately help?
If you have any recommendations on other spices to use for soups they would be appreciated as well.
I’ve found that different whole spices have different maximum efficiency approaches. Trying to do a bunch at once is more difficult than doing one at a time.
I’m with Johnny_Bravo, if I’m going M&P, I tend to do each spice in turn, although unlike normal, I won’t bother cleaning between spices. Another trick, and one that brings out flavor as well is to quickly toast the raw spices/seeds in a hot skillet before grinding: this brings out additional flavors, and makes some of the more elastic spices easier to deal with.
Do read up on the spice in question before using this trick, some are very, very volatile, and some go from toasty to burnt very easily. For that matter, I like M&P if I want a more ‘rustic’ grind, or for dishes that get strained, but if I want a fine grind I tend to cheat and use a dedicated electric spice grinder.
A few times, when I really don’t feel like smashing up the tougher seeds, I use a coffee grinder.
In fact, I have a coffee grinder reserved for this purpose, a cheap affair with a pair of whirling blades. It reduces pretty much anything to a fine dust. It’s amazing for spices.
Nope, that’s the pod. Each pod contains 5 or 6 or so tiny seeds. The outer pod is indigestible, you usually use the inner seeds. The OP specified seeds, not pods. You can buy them either way.
Eta: I just tried to microplane a cardamom pod. Too woody and hard; wouldn’t work.
With a mortar & pestle, yes, they’re not bad at all. I always have trouble with fenugreek. I’ve resorted to a dedicated coffee grinder, myself, for them. You’re right about a microplane for nutmeg.
I don’t think it’s cheating at all. A m&p is a kind of affectation - I like it because I get a kick out of the tactile aspect of its use, but a dedicated grinder is definitely the superior option when it comes to dry spices.
Off-hand open and pressed over the top to prevent jumpers, hold the mortar on a slight angle, with the pestle nestled between your thumb and forefinger.
Use a downward press with a twisting motion with your main hand, press and grind, press and grind. It seems to me it’s a numbers game, i.e. many strokes > fewer, harder strokes.
The magic is in the twist, not the press.
I use my M&P quite often, and I have a smooth one (big mistake!) So learning to do things like mustard seeds without making a mess was quite the adventure.
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