Cumin is one of the three or four spices you genuinely cannot cook Indian food without. Warm, slightly smoky, and completely different whole from ground.

Toast it before you use it. Thirty seconds in a dry pan or hot oil turns it from dusty to fragrant, and it is the single easiest improvement most home cooks can make.

Use whole seeds in tempering, in rice, in raita and in jeera aloo. Grind them fresh for garam masala and marinades, and keep them airtight because they lose their edge quickly once ground.

Stocked at Curry Corner, North Melbourne.