How to Use Saffron

After taking pains to get some saffron, what can you do with it? The most classic use is rice dishes: risottos, pilafs, and paellas. A small pinch adds brilliant color, aroma, and flavor against bland grains. Desserts are another go-to, and saffron can tread anywhere vanilla does, such as custards and cookies. (The flavor profiles of the two are similar: sweet, heady, and musky.) Saffron takes best to light meat and vegetables, such as poultry, cauliflower, and onions. Combine those in a quick braise with saffron, cinnamon, cumin, and almonds and you have a North African-esque dish that tastes like it took way more time than it did.

For general cooking, it's best to add saffron early on in cooking so its flavor can infuse into the other ingredients. If there's water already in the pan, just crumble in the threads. Otherwise soak them in a tablespoon of water for ten minutes before adding to the pan.

If you want saffron's delicate flavor to really come to the fore, keep the other flavors and seasonings to a minimum. But I most enjoy saffron as a supporting player, less for its flavor than for the depth of flavor it gives a whole dish. A small pinch in a large pot of food makes a substantial change its character: The flavor is richer, fuller, and much more aromatic. My favorite saffron dishes are humble affairs with simple ingredients and spices, like plov, an Uzbek rice pilaf studded with carrots and onions. The saffron adds a hint of luxury and some sophisticated sweetness.

Whether you dress it up or down, saffron's worth getting to know. The quality stuff is easier to find than ever, and if you purchase by the gram or the ounce, it's an affordable luxury that'll pay for itself over and over.

What is Saffron?

What is Saffron?

Coming from the dried stigmas of the saffron crocus, it takes 75,000 blossoms or 225,000 hand-picked stigmas to make a single pound which explains why it is the world’s most expensive spice.

More Saffron Trivia

According to Greek myth, handsome mortal Crocos fell in love with the beautiful nymph Smilax. But his favours were rebuffed by Smilax, and he was turned into a beautiful purple crocus flower.

A native of the Mediterranean, saffron is now imported primarily from Spain, where Moslems had introduced it in the 8th century along with rice and sugar.

Valencia coup (coupé meaning “to cut” off the yellow parts from the stigmas) saffron is generally considered the best, though Kashmir now rivals this reputation. Saffron is also cultivated in India, Turkey, China and Iran. The name is from the Arabic word zafaran which means ‘yellow’. The French culinary term safrané means ‘coloured using saffron’. Its colouring properties have been as prized as its unique flavour. In India its colour is considered the epitome of beauty and is the official colour of Buddhist robes.

Saffron was used to scent the baths and public halls of Imperial Rome. Pliny wrote that saffron was the most frequently falsified commodity, which has been true throughout history. Low grade saffron has even been treated with urine to give it colour, though it has most often been falsified with dried calendula or marigold.

The Romans initially brought saffron to England, though it was lost to them in the Dark Ages. It is claimed that in the 14th century a pilgrim to the Holy Land, smuggled back one crocus bulb in a hollow staff from which all English saffron supposedly descends. It is grown in great quantities in Essex, especially in a town called Saffron Walden, whose coat of arms includes three saffron crocuses. Francis Bacon wrote “it maketh the English sprightly”.

Spice Description

Saffron is the three stigmas of the saffron crocus. They are delicate and thread-like, each measuring 2.5 – 4 cm (1 -1.5 in). Its colour is a bright orange-red, and in high quality saffron this is uniform. Saffron threads bearing white streaks or light patches is inferior and when light specks appear in its powdered form it suggests adulteration.
Bouquet: Strongly perfumed, with an aroma of honey
Flavour: A pungent bitter-honey taste
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