WHOLE VERSUS GROUND SPICES

You often hear chefs and recipe writers saying to

use whole spices instead of ground and to toast your
spices before using them, but you don’t often hear
about why. To figure out the answer, I made five
batches of my Easy Weeknight Ground Beef Chili
(here), using spices and chiles treated the following
ways:

1. Preground, straight from the jar


2. Preground, toasted before adding


3. Whole spices and dried chiles, ground and used
   without toasting


4. Whole spices and dried chiles, ground and then
   toasted


5. Whole spices, toasted and then ground

Every batch of chili made with whole spices and
chiles—including those that weren’t toasted—was
superior in flavor to those made with preground
spices. Of the two made with preground spices, the
toasted version was slightly more complex, and of
the three made with whole spices, the one with spices
that were toasted before grinding was markedly
superior to the one that used ground and then
toasted spices. Why was this?
Well, toasting whole spices accomplishes two