The dried fruits, whether whole or powdered, can be dry roasted or fried in ghee to bring out their flavour. If you have the inclination, it is better to buy whole cumin and grind it to order, as it will lose its flavour quite quickly when powdered. It is a major part of much Indian cooking, and a constituent part of garam masala and the Bengali panch phoram, and tandoori chicken. Lentils are often flavoured with cumin fried, often with onions, in ghee. Although, whilst its history is long, it is also slightly unclear. ‘Jeera’ can sometimes mean both cumin and caraway, and so translations, including in some recipe books, have sometimes taken the wrong meaning.
