Safflower seed
Carthamus tinctorius · Seed
Top 10 pairings
Safflower seed is the small, hard-hulled oilseed of Carthamus tinctorius, a thistle-like annual of the daisy family grown mainly for a light, neutral cooking oil. The angular white-to-cream seeds are crushed for high-linoleic or high-oleic safflower oil, ground into meal for feed, and sold as a favourite birdseed; the plant's orange-red petals are a separate product, a saffron substitute and dye.
Picking a good onedrag
Fresh-pressed, pale, clean and neutralStale and waxy, smells of crayon
Sound and sealedEveryday bestKeep it capped, cool and out of the light, and keep seed whole in a jar. Toast the kernels to wake the nuttiness the oil was refined out of.
Smell it before you commitNeutral, a mild oily note and nothing more
Hold the bottle to the lightDeeper gold, or hazy from the cold or from no filtering
Run the seed through your fingersDry and free, a little pale dust left on the fingers
Read the grade, not the best-beforeFood-grade with the type stated, but only a best-before