Beginner's guide to BUYING, STORING & ORGANIZING SPICES

today we're going to be learning about spices how do you store them optimally what spices should you pick up for your kitchen and where should you buy them to save quite a bit of money welcome back to the channel I'm Ethan a home cooking nerd who likes to find better ways to cook and share them with all of you time stamps are in the YouTube play bar for all the various sections so you guys can check out and jump around but first let's start with a little bit of spice knowledge from Harold McGee's on food and cooking he describes herbs and spices as categories of plant materials used primarily as flavorings in relatively small amounts each spice has an aroma compound that gives it its characteristic flavor the compound that makes fresh ground pepper smell and taste like fresh ground pepper versus the aroma compounds that make oregano smell and taste like oregano now typically we buy spices as whole or ground and it actually makes a huge impact on the flavor life of each spice whole spices will keep well for a year or more while pre ground spices will start to degrade in flavor after just three to six months you see the spice compounds are highly volatile and reactive meaning they will be altered when exposed to oxygen moisture in the air or energy sources like heat and direct light when you compare ground versus whole spices the fine particles of ground spices have a large surface area and lose their aroma molecules to the air much more rapidly to test this you could do a little experiment take a couple of peppercorns and give them a sniff now ground some fresh peppercorns and give that a snip the increased surface area should give off much more smell but that's only while they are fresh ground if you leave that pepper sit out the open air for 24 hours it won't be nearly as fragrant or if you have ever had a ground pepper that's been in the cabinet for years that stuff basically has no flavor left and this is your cue to throw out any old ground spices that have been hovering in the cabinet for the past several years so now that we know a little bit about spices it's easy to understand how to store them in general we want to say from moisture open-air heat and light so probably the worst possible place you could store your spices is in an open bowl right by the stove with a boiling pot of water and sunlight streaming down a good place on the other hand to store them is in sealed containers in a dry environment from extreme heat and direct light now the most optimum storage for maintaining flavored life would be an opaque glass container stored in the freezer and then you let that container warm to room temperature before opening to use the spice to prevent moisture from condensing now I don't know about you but watching spice containers warm up while I'm trying to make dinner doesn't sound too exciting so here's what I do about 24 clear spice and containers on Amazon and fill them up with my various spices I went with the clear ones because I like the aesthetic it's just fun to see all the vibrant colors variations and shapes however because I'm using clear bottles I'll be storing them in the drawer I bought a bamboo drawer insert that pops them up nicely and keeps them organized I place these in a drawer to the left of my stove so I have easy access but make sure they sit on the far left of the drawer so they don't get much any ambient heat from when the oven and stove are in use this way I could quickly grab my spices if I'm set up with my butcher block doing prep work or if I need to add something quickly at the stove so we've got the storing down but what about buying them because if you aren't careful the spice dollars can really add up fast the question of what spices you should buy is completely personal for example if you are really into Indian food there are countless variations of spices you could potentially pick up but if you only make Indian food from time to time maybe you only want to keep three to four core spices on hand so they don't lose their flavor by the time you finally use them for me I've outlined this question in three buying categories for how I use these number one is absolute bare necessities number two is my top five used spices and number three is the pro home cooks kind of basic spice cabinet which you can basically almost make anything my absolute bare necessities are coarse kosher salt and black peppercorns for purposes of cooking salt is the most important ingredient for seasoning and enhancing the flavor of food so I'm including it in this video even though technically it is a mineral and not a spice meaning it's actually not going to lose flavor over time and you just need to keep it dry that's it the first thing every cook should do is learn how to master salt and pepper salt alone is all this needed to make amazing meals and I'll make a couple of videos below that I've done about salting but let's move to my top five spices my top five use spices include cumin seeds chili powder turmeric smoked paprika and oregano with just these five spices I can make all sorts of dishes from Mexican cuisine Indian cuisine Italian Mediterranean and more and if you're wondering why garlic powder is not on my top-five list is because I prefer to use fresh garlic nine times out of ten so I don't typically reach for garlic powder too often now let's add eleven more spices to what alcohol the pro home cooks kind of basic spices for me these are bay leaves garlic powder sumac dried dill coriander seed fennel seed mustard seed red pepper flakes cinnamon stick whole cloves and cardamom pod adding these eleven spices you can really transport your taste buds all across the globe with just a few pinches of that here in there now even though these are the spices that I would say to pick up I wouldn't suggest you run out and go get all eighteen of them in one go as I did thankfully this is a business expense instead take a minute and think about what you want to cook maybe add an extra 10 to 15 dollars to the grocery budget to pick up a couple spices speaking of where is the best place to buy spices spices can quickly get expensive especially if you're picking up those 1 ounce glass bottles at the grocery store that easily can run you 6 to 7 dollars a piece multiply that by 18 spices and you were looking at well over a hundred and twenty dollars the first option is to find a store that sells spices in bulk so you can buy exactly how much you want and don't have to pay for the packaging another great and cheaper option that I found allowed me to buy over eighteen spices weighing over 80 total ounces and it only cost me at $72 the secret Google international grocery store near you I've lived in various places along the east and west coast and have always had one within a 30-minute Drive and this one that I went to is actually only nine minutes away so I'll be visiting much more often they'll typically have a large selection of spices and bags and containers that are much much cheaper than your typical big box grocery store additionally you'll see a lot of cool stuff from snacks in the frozen section in the meat counter so it's definitely one that you should just check out in the meantime I had everybody so hopefully that gives you some ideas on how to buy and store spices to make them last as long as possible and I've left a notion page down below in the description that has all of these spices listed as well as the price that I got them for so after being interrupted by that spam call yeah so I left an ocean page down below that has all these spices listed with the prices that I got them for and the price per ounce so if you guys are going to the grocery store you could take that as a shopping list and a price reference point to know if I mean I think I got a good deal on most of these but like I said I'm gonna keep these in the drawer they'll last a long time and I still have a entire box in here with all my leftover spices it's kind of insane but that's gonna wrap it up for this video I'm planning to do a pantry basics video kind of similar to this about what I pick up so that's something you guys want to see definitely drop this video a like and subscribe I'll catch you in the next one peace [Music]

Channel: Ethan Chlebowski

Views: 964,538

Keywords: Cook with E, 4k Cooking videos, kitchen spices, how to buy spices, kitchen spice organization, spice organization, spices for cooking, how to store spices, why do spices lose flavor, groud spices, whole spices, what are spices food, what are spices, spices, herbs, herbs and spices, cooking spices, cooking, beginners cooking guide, beginner's cooking tips, essential spices for a kitchen, essential spices

Id: Ya8m34WeDdg

Length: 7min 45sec (465 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 18 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Gankus]

Great tips. I find that some of the spices listed are pretty niche, such as coriander seed or mustard seed. While those are extremely prevalent in cooking, I've found more general use for cumin in home cooking. I also use a lot of rubbed sage, but I believe that is more of a personal niche than a staple. I also tend to use garlic powder way more than turmeric along with using fresh garlic.