What to use instead of cumin seeds
It depends entirely on what it's doing in the dish. Here's the job, what else does it, and what to skip.
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Whole seeds bloomed in hot fat to start a dish
The oils only come out in fat, and twenty seconds of sizzling turns them from raw and grassy to toasted and nutty. Whole seeds also stay whole, so you get bursts of it in the finished dish.
Whole caraway seedsRan out
Half the volume
Sharper and more aniseed. It sits well in a lentil dish and pulls a Tex-Mex one sideways into rye bread.
Whole coriander seeds, lightly crushedRan out
1:1 by volume
Citrus and floral where cumin was earthy. The dish loses its base note, so add a pinch of ground cumin later if you have it.
Whole fennel seedsRan out
Half the volume
Sweet and liquorice-like, and they pop rather than crackle. At home in Bengali and Gujarati cooking.
Ground cumin, added with the onionsRan out
Match by weight; 1 tsp of seeds is about 2 g
No pop and no bursts of texture, and it scorches in five seconds in bare oil, so it has to go in with something wet.
What doesn't work: Ground cumin dropped straight into bare hot oil. Powder has hundreds of times the surface area of a seed, so it burns in about five seconds, and burnt cumin is bitter all the way through the finished dish.
Earthy backbone in a toasted spice paste or rub
Toasted and ground, cumin gives the low, sweaty, earthy note that holds coriander and chile together. Without it a masala tastes bright on top and empty underneath.
Ground cumin from a jarRan out
Match by weight
Saves the toasting and grinding, and fades faster: a jar open six months is close to half strength, so taste and add more.
Toasted ground coriander plus carawayRan out
2 parts coriander to 1 part caraway, matched by weight to the cumin
Brighter and sharper. The paste loses the earthy weight that makes it read as a curry rather than a marinade.
Garam masalaRan out
1/2 tsp garam masala per 1 tsp cumin seed
Cinnamon, clove and cardamom come along with it, so the dish goes sweeter and warmer and less savoury.
What doesn't work: Swapping black cumin, the small dark shahi jeera, for regular cumin at 1:1. They look alike in a jar and they are different spices: black cumin is smokier and much stronger, so it takes over a chilli and regular cumin leaves a Kashmiri dish tasting hollow.