Ingredients · Spice

Coriander

Coriandrum sativum · Apiaceae (carrot family)

Coriander
The round, ridged seed of the same plant whose leaf is cilantro — and it tastes nothing like it. Where the leaf is green and divisive, the seed is warm, citrusy and floral, closer to orange peel than to anything herbal. That is why plenty of people who cannot abide cilantro happily eat coriander seed. It is in twenty-eight products here, doing the quiet work in curry powders, pickling spice and sausage blends: it rounds a blend off and bridges the sweet and savoury sides of it.

What it’s like, and how to use it

The partSeed
KindSpice
CaffeineCaffeine-free
Where it is fromMediterranean (native range)
TasteWarm, citrusy and floral, a little sweet — orange peel and pepper together

How to use it

Toast whole seeds in a dry pan until they smell like orange, then grind — the difference is not subtle. Ground into curry powder, garam masala, berbere, harissa and ras el hanout. Whole in pickling brine, where it is one of the standard seeds. In sausage, including South African boerewors and German wursts. Crushed into a rub for lamb or pork.

With food

Orange and lemon. Lamb, pork and duck. Carrot, beetroot and squash. Chickpeas and lentils. Yogurt. Wheat beer. Cucumber pickles.

With spices

Cumin — the two are so often together that the pair is its own flavour. Turmeric, fenugreek and chile in curry. Fennel and mustard for pickling. Cardamom and cinnamon in a sweeter direction. Black pepper.

With tea

Darjeeling, which shares linalool with it. Earl Grey, for the citrus. A green tea after a coriander-heavy meal.

Its story

Where it comes from

Native to the Mediterranean Basin and growing wild across a wide band of West Asia and southern Europe. India is the great modern grower and user. Shop notes name Indian, Mexican, Mediterranean and Asian tables but no lot origin, so lot origin is unconfirmed.

What happened

Fifteen dried seeds six to eight thousand years old were found in the Nahal Hemar cave. About half a litre of them went into Tutankhamun's tomb. Linear B tablets from Mycenaean Pylos record coriander grown for making perfume, under the word ko-ri-ja-da-na — one of the oldest attested names of any spice. In Exodus the manna is like coriander seed, white, and tastes of wafers made with honey. The name itself is a small insult: Greek koriandron is linked to koris, the bedbug, for the smell of the green, unripe plant. Belgium's white beers of Hoegaarden and Leuven were famous by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and witbier still carries coriander and orange peel. Borodinsky, the dark Russian rye, is studded with the seeds — legend says nuns baked the first loaf on the Borodino battlefield, the round seeds standing for grapeshot, though the name does not appear in print before the 1920s.

On the shelf with it

Sold on its own, and in these blends.

Every ingredient in the shop

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