How to Cook with Saffron

How to cook with saffron. Saffron is the most expensive spice in the world. Saffron gives a hue of yellow and an exotic taste to food. Saffron can be used in breads, pasta, rice, fish, meats... Almost anything! You just have to know how to use it to bring out the best in Saffron . 

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   Saffron Stock
    1 Saffron threads absorb the flavor of the foods around it, so you need to be careful and try to avoid adding saffron directly on foods with a strong taste. Normally when adding saffron to a dish chefs take out hot liquid from what they are cooking and add the saffron to the liquid and let it seep. This way the saffron lends its color and taste to the food instead of merely blending in with the food.
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   Organic vs.. Non-Organic Saffron. Many people try to cultivate saffron and while doings so add many pesticides and chemicals to try to protect the expensive spice. Chemicals can ruin the value of Saffron. Organic Saffron is stronger in taste and sometimes even cheaper than chemical bombarded Saffron! Under "Resources" under this article there is a great website that sells organic saffron for a very competitive price and also has  Recipes and facts about saffron.
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   Saffron Rice
   Saffron is mostly used on rice, although that is not the limit to the spice. The famous "saffron bread" and "saffron sauce" are also great buddies with the spice. Experimenting might be costly so it's best to go with recipes at first then try to incorporate it into your own dishes when you understand its subtle characteristics. Good luck in cooking with Saffron!

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How to Buy Saffron

How and where to buy the best saffron? Saffron is one of the most expensive spices and was once sold at the price of gold. Saffron is hand picked, one reason for its high market price. Saffron is used for color and its pungent flavor. It is grown in Spain, Iran, Kashmir and some parts of North Africa.




1 A lot of people try to cultivate Saffron and use certain pesticides while doing so. It is very important when you are looking for a product as fine and expensive as saffron to get your money's worth. In buying saffron, you should always look for the "organic" label. Organic saffron is amazing in smell and more powerful then any pesticide sprayed saffron. Quality is crucial when there is little quantity.


2 There is a great website under "Resources" underneath this article that is dedicated to selling only organic saffron, in fact the only product it sells is organic saffron. Online stores are becoming more and more numerous, therefore there are a lot of options out there.

3 Saffron should be bought in small amounts unless you are a fine-foodie chef that uses it all the time. For a dish that serves 4 anywhere from half to 2 grams of saffron is used. Saffron is strong and a little should do!

Kashmir Special saffron

  

There are only two or three places in the whole world where saffron grows. Kashmir has the proud privilege of being one of these places. There are two locations in Kashmir where saffron grows. One of these two places is Pampur. Pampur is a small town, which is 13 km from Srinagar. The saffron plant is very small and its flower is the only part which is seen above the ground. The blooming time of this flower is autumn. Saffron has a unique sweet smell.

The botanical name of Saffron is Crocus sativus. The purple colored flowers appear just above the ground and are a beautiful sight. The orange stigmas of the saffron plant are harvested as saffron and used as a flavoring and coloring agent in various recipes. Saffron is added to Kahwa - the traditional Saffron Tea drunk by people in Kashmir.
A hundred Kg of fresh flowers yield about three Kilograms of dehydrated stigmas, which constitute the finest and the most expensive saffron, called "Shahi Zafran", The remaining flower parts are processed further to 

abtain inferior grades called "Mogra Zafran".
"Saffron flowers bloom for about three weeks from mid-October to the first days of November. To see them during the day is nice. But seeing (and smelling) them on a moonlight October night is an experience even emperors notably 'Jehangir', the Mughal- would crave for."

Uses of Saffron
Saffron has been used as spice and coloring agent for many centuries and has numerous medicinal properties. It is by far one of the oldest herbs ever used for medicinal purposes in the history of mankind and up to this date it is being used in some regions of the world such as India. It has been written that around 600 B.C. Phoenicians were looking for a mysterious plant in Kashmir, one whose flower had silky stigmas with a pungent aroma. The stigmas were believed to cure many illnesses and also had the capability of making strong dye. Europeans are believed to be among the first to use saffron as a spice in their cooking. Saffron is also used in many other industries such as the tobacco industry, alcohol industry, dairy industry, cosmetic industry for perfumes and facial creams, and the dye industry. Cleopatra used it to give her skin a golden color and romantic aroma. Saffron is also used in religious ceremonies. Tibetan Monks use saffron for prayer and blessing. Calligraphers have used saffron to write religious books such as the Koran.

 The orange-red stigmas of the saffron plant produce a pleasant aroma and a warm golden orange color. The yellow stamens are also harvested, however they do not have the same aromatic and color properties of the stigmas. Pure saffron consists of only the orange-red stigmas of the saffron plant. Saffron is also believed to have many medicinal properties. Called Kesar in the rest of India, saffron is used as a flavoring agent in many food preparations, from rice dishes, such as biryani, to various sweets.

Saffron should be stored in an airtight container and kept away from moisture and bright light. Bright light such as sunlight will bleach the color of saffron. That is why when the crocus flower blooms, the flower has to be picked at dawn (Sahar) before the sun shines on it. Also do not expose your saffron to the moisture. Do not open your jar of saffron near a boiling pot of water in the kitchen.

What is Saffron?

Saffron is a spice derived from the flower of the saffron crocus (Crocus sativus), a species of crocus in the Iridaceae. A C. sativus flower bears three stigmas, each the distal end of a carpel. Together with their styles—stalks connecting stigmas to their host plant—stigmas are dried and used in cooking as a seasoning and colouring agent. Saffron, long the world's most expensive spice by weight.

Saffron's bitter taste and an iodoform- or hay-like fragrance result from the chemicals picrocrocin and safranal.A carotenoid dye, crocin, allows saffron to impart a rich golden-yellow hue to dishes and textiles. Saffron has further medicinal applications.
The domesticated saffron crocus  is an autumn-flowering perennial plant unknown in the wild. It is a sterile triploid form, possibly of the eastern Mediterranean autumn-flowering Crocus cartwrightianus that originated in Central Asia.The saffron crocus resulted when C. cartwrightianus was subjected to extensive artificial selection by growers seeking longer stigmas. Being sterile, the plant's purple flowers fail to produce viable seeds; reproduction depends on human assistance: corms, underground bulb-like starch-storing organs, must be dug up, broken apart, and replanted. A corm survives for one season, reproducing via this division into up to ten "cormlets" that yield new plants.Corms are small brown globules up to 4.5 centimetres (1.8 in) in diameter and are shrouded in a dense mat of parallel fibers.
Morphology
Crocus sativus, from Kohler's Medicinal Plants (1887)
     →  Stigma
     →  Stamens
     →  Corolla
     →  Corm

After aestivating in spring, the plant sends up five to eleven narrow and nearly vertical green leaves, each up to 40 cm (16 in) in length. In autumn, purple buds appear. Only in October, after most other flowering plants have released their seeds, do its brilliantly hued flowers develop; they range from a light pastel shade of lilac to a darker and more striated mauve.Upon flowering, plants average less than 30 cm (12 in) in height.A three-pronged style emerges from each flower. Each prong terminates with a vivid crimson stigma 25–30 mm (0.98–1.2 in) in length.