GREEN PREMIUM CORIANDER POWDER

Usually with spent husk, starch or, at the crude end, dried dung powder. Sprinkle the powder on water: husk and dung float and can be skimmed, while genuine coriander wets and sinks. A drop of iodine turning it blue-black indicates added starch.

Coriander seed carries linalool and other volatile oils that leave within weeks of grinding. A packet ground months ago still looks the same and smells of comparatively little, which is why recipes calling for it often taste flat.

Yes, we sell whole coriander seed and you can also bring your own to the counter for milling. Whole seed keeps its aroma about four times longer than powder.

It refers to the greener, plumper grade of seed rather than a different species. It is selected for aroma and gives a sweeter, more citrusy powder than the pale, thin-husked commodity grade.

Considerably more than most North Indian recipes — coriander is the bulk of a sambar or rasam powder rather than a background note. That is also why buying it freshly milled makes a noticeable difference to the finished dish.

It does not become unsafe so much as it goes flat. Rub a pinch between your fingers and smell it: fresh powder releases aroma at once. If you have to work at it, the volatile oils have gone and it is time to replace it, however good the colour still looks.

Either, as long as it is airtight and opaque. Light does more damage than the container material. A steel dabba or a tinted jar in a cupboard beats a clear glass jar on the shelf above the hob every time.

Better not. Taking a cold jar in and out of a warm kitchen condenses moisture inside it, and damp powder cakes and can grow mould. A cool, dark cupboard is the right place.

Timing, mostly. A packet was ground in a factory months earlier and has been sitting since. Ours is milled to order from whole spice you can look at first, so the aromatic oils are still in the powder, and nothing is added at any point - no colour, no starch, no anti-caking agent.

Milled to order. Whole spice is kept in store and ground when you buy it or when your order is packed. We do not hold ground stock, which is the whole reason the shop has a mill in the customer area.