Maybe obvious but I just thought to myself “I make this meal all the time and every time I mix together the required amount of spices. Why don’t I just make a shit load and then use as much as I need each time?”
Gonna do this from now on its actually gonna save me so much psychic damage from fucking around with powder.
This still applies to feelers, though; you can still feel out the ratios for the spice mix. The point is, either way, the spice mix is just 1 jar that you dump out onto the meal instead of 5.
It really doesn’t, because the spice profile added to any dish should be reflective of the individual ingredient(a) taste, and it doesn’t matter what you buy and when nothing ever has a uniformity in its chemical properties. You can get two tomatoes off the same vine that are completely different acidity, just as one example.
So when people like me add spicing freeform, it’s because we are interfacing with the dish as it comes together, and we know what it needs more, or less of.
I’d also add that just the action of tasting, looking at your shelf of spices and adding as needed is so satisfying. Also the fact that you can experiment a bit with that.
It’s really my favorite part when cooking with spices
Gotcha. To be fair, I actually use your individual method and have never made a spice mix, either, but that’s more because I’m too habituated to make one—not because I don’t think it’d work (since I don’t often taste-test anyway).