The Kalonji/Nigella Experiment

Yorky

Yorky

RIP 21/01/2024
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Today I prepared "dry potato and cauliflower bhaji" in order to investigate the reason for the strange phenomenon of the green coloured kalonji (or nigella) seeds. Unfortunately the experiment did not produce successfull useable results.

Instead of the stainless steel dog bowl in the initial image, I used a neutral coloured dish. In order to emulate the original image I had the "white balance" set to auto. All images taken with the 18-55 mm lense.

Image 1 - Inside - Borrowed sunlight diffused by translucent blinds - 1/125th; f8; ISO 800; fl 29mm; no flash.

kalonji-dl_zpssj7jmlic.jpg


Image 2 - Inside - Borrowed sunlight diffused by translucent blinds but with fill-in bounced flash - 1/125th; f8; ISO 800; fl 29mm, remote flash set to auto (8 o'clock).

kalonji-dl-fl_zpsapxsf2wu.jpg


Image - Outside - Bright sunlight but in the shade - 1/125th; f6.3; ISO 800; fl 32mm, no flash.

kalonji-os_zpsnj2rmfvm.jpg


Now I shall go and eat it!

[Edit: to clarify: the kalonji used in this dish was the same as that used in the original "green tinge" dish. Well, obviously not the same kalonji (that has already been eaten) but it was from the same storage jar.]
 
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The first image shows the bowl colour closest to the actual colour.

It has me thinking that the green tinge may be an effect of the reflection of the stainless steel bowl. Seems highly unlikely though.
 
It's hard to tell, but the green seeds look more rectangular than the black ones do. The black ones look more as they should do.

Are you sure you picked up the correct seeds? It's easy to do and I'm sure we have all done it before.. :whistling:
 
I have five jars of seeds in my spice cabinet that are black - peppercorns, black cardamoms, black mustard seeds, black cumin seeds and nigella seeds. I cannot see how I could have been mistaken.

Although I could have been a little tired at the time.

[As tired as a newt?]
 
Yorky said:
I have five jars of seeds in my spice cabinet that are black - peppercorns, black cardamoms, black mustard seeds, black cumin seeds and nigella seeds. I cannot see how I could have been mistaken.

Although I could have been a little tired at the time.

[As tired as a newt?]
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Well those are all black anyway! The seeds in the green image look slightly bigger to me.
 
Yorky said:
I have five jars of seeds in my spice cabinet that are black - peppercorns, black cardamoms, black mustard seeds, black cumin seeds and nigella seeds. I cannot see how I could have been mistaken.

Although I could have been a little tired at the time.

[As tired as a newt?]
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What do you have that is green? I war thinking of what happens here. Look at what you want, turn away as you pick it up and end up picking up the item to either side of it instead... :whistling:
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
What do you have that is green? I war thinking of what happens here. Look at what you want, turn away as you pick it up and end up picking up the item to either side of it instead... :whistling:
Click to expand...

Some things that are green(ish) in the same cupboard. Fennel seeds, cumin seeds, green cardamom, caraway seeds; however, I cannot imagine that I'd mistake any of those for nigella, whatever I'd been drinking.
 
Yorky said:
I cannot imagine that I'd mistake any of those for nigella, whatever I'd been drinking.
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I think there are at least 2 of us here who might be prepared to veto that statement!

Can you line up a little experiment and photo it.

I don't think we need to include the green cardamom pods, but perhaps you have their seeds only (in a jar). They are not something we would normally get separately from their pods, but the others are all contenders in my book. I have seen how widely cumin can vary, and sometimes it is surprisingly green other times very very brown, sometimes short and stumpy other times long and thin, but again I don't think it looks like them. However, a few, random seeds of each in a line with names underneath on a white piece of paper?

morning glory said:
The plot thickens...
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Or the curry in this instance :whistling:
 
I'm doing my own experiment. Green cardamom seeds look to me to be the most likely candidate (not pods, obviously). They are more the shape of the greenish ones in the photo. Having said that, I'm not holding out too much hope as they aren't as green as the photo. Cumin and caraway seem too dark. Fennel might be possible (isn't that what I said originally?) but is the wrong shape.
 
morning glory said:
I'm not holding out too much hope as they aren't as green as the photo. Cumin and caraway seem too dark. Fennel might be possible (isn't that what I said originally?) but is the wrong shape
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things vary so much from place to place. Cumin seeds here are much greener than in the UK. I know in the UK I could get up with individual green seeds in my cumin from a different shop to my normal place, so it really needs to be @Yorky's supply of them tbh. Caraway are much more a northern, colder climate seed I think. Fennel could easily be a different sub-species (wrong word but can't think what the correct one is) and hence a different shape - well truth be told they all could be.

It is so very different from country to country. My OH came home with lime leaves for me last night to add to a dish with lemongrass in and all I can say is that we may as well have left both of them out. We could not tell. The main ingredients in that soup (made with water) were 2 medium potatoes, 1 onion and 500g of spinach (though I had to use silver beet for half). None of those should have overwhelmed Kaffir leaves or Lemongrass. The lemongrass was even chopped finely and liquidised with the soup! It's a good thing there are 2 more sticks of lemongrass and we left the kaffir leaves in the soup we didn't eat for tonight's tea because to say we were underwhelmed with the recipe (from an excellent book) is putting it mildly.
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
Can you line up a little experiment and photo it.
Click to expand...

I was looking through my "Spice Page" and noticed that celery seeds were similar. The fact is that I don't have any celery seeds. I'll get on the case (my green cardamoms are the full pods).

greenseeds.jpg


(Canon 18-55mm lense - 1/200; f8; ISO 400; 28mm - borrowed diffused daylight)
 
Yorky said:
I was looking through my "Spice Page" and noticed that celery seeds were similar. The fact is that I don't have any celery seeds. I'll get on the case (my green cardamoms are the full pods).

View attachment 3786

(Canon 18-55mm lense - 1/200; f8; ISO 400; 28mm - borrowed diffused daylight)
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Your kalonji seeds are tiny! either that or your mustard seeds are huge!
I can't see it being any of those at all.
You have me thinking that I am going to have to have a look through my spices now.
But that will have to be after lunch (1:30pm now) and after the stuff I am in the process of making has happened.
I am pretty certain I have celery seeds, but I will double check.
 
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