Ingredients
Coriander seed
Other Names: Coentro (Portuguese); coriandolo (Italian); coriandre (French); coriandro (Spanish); dhania (Hindi); gad or kusbara (Hebrew); giligilani (Swahili); hu sui (Chinese); ketumbar (Indonesian); kişniş (Turkish); koliandro (Greek); koriander (German); koriandr (Russian); kusbarah (Arabic); ¬_mellet pak chi_ (Thai); mui (Vietnamese).
General Description: Coriander (Coriandrum sativum) has tan-colored, ribbed, lightweight fruits, commonly called seeds, with a pleasing warm, nutty, and orange- or lemonlike flavor with floral undertones. Although cilantro and coriander are respectively the leaves and fruits of the same plant, their flavors are totally different. The fruits of the smaller microcarpum variety, more common in Europe and the United States, have more floral essential oil than those of the Indian variety, vulgare, which are elongated and shaped like tiny lemons.
In the Mediterranean, coriander cultivation dates back to ancient Egypt; coriander is also mentioned in the Bible, where it’s compared to manna. Sugar-coated coriander seeds are used as a breath freshener in India. Now out of fashion, in Great Britain the candy-coated seeds were called comfits; in the United States they were called candy marbles. The herbal-tasting unripe seeds are used in pickles by the Pennsylvania Dutch.
Unlike coriander’s pungent leaves, its seeds are an unassuming and versatile spice popular in much of Europe, North Africa, India, Asia, and Latin America. They flavor gin, pickling brines, sausage, hot dogs, Greek-style vegetables (à la grecque), pastries, and cookies, and are often mixed with peppercorns as an aromatic seasoning. Crushed coriander has a thickening property when added to sauces, such as Indian curries. Coriander is an ingredient in Ethiopian berberé, Indian curry powders, and Arabic baharat.
Purchase and Avoid: Many recipes call for either coarsely crushed coriander or whole seeds, and since the seeds are light and easy to crush, it’s best to buy them whole for flavor.
Serving Suggestions: Toast coriander seeds in a dry pan before grinding to add to Indian, Asian, and North African dishes. Add ground (untoasted) coriander to cakes, cookies, apple pie, fruit crumbles, and Danish pastry. Add ground coriander to polenta, as the early Romans did.
Food Affinities: Apple, artichoke, asparagus, beet, cardoon, carrot, celeriac, chicken, fennel, fish, gin, ginger, leek, lemon, mushrooms, parsnip, polenta, sausage.
from Quirk Books: www.quirkbooks.com
