Spice

Pure Resin

S tier

Pure resin is uncut asafoetida—amber to brown tears or lumps that reek powerfully until cooked. A scraping the size of a mustard seed can season a pot of dal. Serious cooks and traditionalists prefer pure resin for clean flavour without flour dullness. Chip a fragment, crush, and bloom in hot ghee. Store double-wrapped; the smell will colonise a spice drawer. Pure resin costs more per gram but lasts ages at true culinary doses. Avoid resin that is rock-hard and odourless—it may be exhausted or fake.