The Journal
What to do with saffron once you own it, what to send and when to order it, and a note from the house each time a lot is certified.
The Grading School
Three threads, a glass of room-temperature water, ten minutes. Real saffron colours the water slowly and the thread stays red. Plus the rub, the smell, the shape and the shake, and the five things to read on a label before you pay.
Read the postThe Grading School
Three red stigmas per flower, taken out by hand. Why a gram takes about a hundred and fifty flowers, what a good thread looks like, and what threads, powder and extract each do.
7 min read
The Grading School
Four grade names plus bunch, all answering one question: how much of the pale yellow base of the thread is still in the jar. Which to buy for what, and why the name on the label proves nothing.
6 min read
The kitchen
Fifteen to twenty threads serve four, and they need twenty minutes in warm liquid first. Dosage by dish, what to bloom it in, how to store it, and the five mistakes.
8 min read
The Grading School
What a gram should cost here, how to read a per-gram figure when every shop sells a different weight, and why the number that matters is the cost per dish.
6 min read
The Grading School
Two yellow spices with opposite rules. Why one dissolves and clouds while the other bleeds a slow amber, and how to tell which is in the jar before you cook with it.
5 min read
Not a post, a reference