Why I toast the spices before the onion

The pan is already warm — and the hand pulls the onion in first “as always”. Easy to skip the dry seeds: by supper the sauce smells only of oil, the cumin stayed raw and dusty. I tip whole spices onto dry heat for a minute — so they open, and only then I put the onion in.

Why I toast the spices before the onion. Onion in the pan first is another note; paprika I actually sprinkle its own; the pestle another story. Here it’s the dry seeds themselves before the onion: a short heat without oil, the smell — not a lecture about “twelve spices of India”.

If it already smells burnt — off the heat, not “one more second for colour”. Ground spices I don’t toast long: they turn bitter faster. I’m not reviewing a new spice set in this note — it’s about the handful that already waits by our hob.

I don’t need a sauce in which the spices stayed dust. I need a smell from which the kitchen is already alive before the onion. At yours do spices toast before the onion — or is the onion already hissing, and the cumin still raw in the jar?