Ingredient

Turmeric

Turmeric is used for colour more often than for flavour, which is why so much of it tastes of nothing but chalk. It does have a flavour — earthy, slightly bitter, faintly gingery — and getting at it requires fat and heat.

It needs fat and it needs heat

Turmeric's colour and most of its flavour compounds are fat-soluble and poorly soluble in water. Stirred into a watery sauce, ground turmeric largely stays as suspended powder: it colours the liquid weakly, tastes raw and chalky, and can leave a gritty feel.

Bloomed in hot fat for twenty or thirty seconds — with the onions, or in a tarka with cumin and mustard seed — it behaves completely differently. The colour goes deep and even, the raw edge cooks off, and it starts tasting earthy and warm rather than dusty.

The practical rule: turmeric goes into the oil, not into the pot. This single change fixes most complaints about it.

Fresh and dried

Fresh root

Looks like small, orange-fleshed ginger. Brighter, more citrusy, less bitter, and it grates like ginger. Excellent in pickles, dressings, juices and light curries.

Ground dried

Deeper, earthier, more bitter, and far more concentrated in colour. The everyday form and what recipes assume.

Rough conversion

Around a tablespoon of grated fresh for a teaspoon of ground, though they taste different enough that it is not a straight swap.

Quality

Good turmeric is strongly aromatic and deep orange-yellow; old or adulterated turmeric is pale, dusty-smelling and mostly colour.

Using it

• Less than you think. A quarter to a half teaspoon colours a curry for four. Too much is genuinely bitter and slightly medicinal.
• Always with fat, always with heat. In the oil at the start, not stirred into the sauce at the end.
• With black pepper, which is traditional and does have a chemical basis, and simply tastes good.
• In rice, added to the cooking water with a little oil, for a golden pilaf.
• In pickles and quick-pickled vegetables, where fresh turmeric is at its best.
• In a marinade with yoghurt, where the fat in the yoghurt carries it and it clings to the meat.

The staining, which is not trivial

• Turmeric stains skin, wooden spoons, plastic containers, worktops, grout and light-coloured clothing, sometimes permanently.
• Plastic is the worst offender. Use glass or stainless steel for anything turmeric-heavy that has to sit.
• On skin, it fades in a day or two. Oil or a paste of bicarbonate of soda speeds it up.
• On fabric, act immediately and do not let it dry. Sunlight genuinely helps fade turmeric stains, which is the traditional remedy and an effective one.
• Wear an apron and use a dark chopping board with fresh turmeric.

Getting the most out of it

• Fry it in fat for a few seconds rather than stirring it into liquid. Its colour and flavour compounds are fat-soluble, and blooming it makes a visible difference.
• Do not fry it hard or long — it scorches quickly and turns bitter and muddy. A few seconds with the other ground spices, then liquid.
• It stains everything: hands, worktops, wooden spoons, plastic containers and grout. Use a metal or glass bowl and wipe spills immediately.
• Fresh turmeric root is milder, brighter and more citrusy than dried, and is worth trying if you see it. Grate it like ginger.
• It is mostly colour and earthiness rather than a strong flavour, so it works as a background note rather than a lead one. A dish that tastes of turmeric usually has too much.
• Buy it in small quantities. Ground turmeric fades and goes flat and dusty within months.

Common questions