Five Spice Powder: How to Use Five Spice Powder in Cuisine
Five spice powder is a familiar spice in Eastern cuisines. Today, it is widely used in many countries. With ingredients that have all the harmonious elements of sour, spicy, salty, sweet, and bitter flavors. It becomes a perfect spice to enhance the taste and aroma of food. Let’s learn about the ingredients and how to use Five Spice Powder in cooking!
1. What is Five Spice Powder?
Five spice powder is a spice that appears in many cuisines. This spice is a combination of 5 basic flavors in cuisine including: salty, sweet, sour, spicy, bitter. The flavors blend together to create a distinct characteristic. The ingredients of this powder are not exactly the same because the mixing formula of each region and country depends on the taste. However, in the traditional mixing formula, the basic ingredients of five-spice powder are a mixture of the following ingredients in a certain dosage.
What does five-spice powder include?
Szechwan pepper: This spicy and hot pepper belongs to the lemon family. It has a scent similar to camphor. Producers often grind the dark red outer shell into powder to mix into five-spice powder. However, due to the scarcity of pepper, today, people often use the whole pepper.
Cloves: They are the buds containing a lot of essential oils, a strong aroma, and the slightly brown color of dried cloves
Cinnamon: The bark of the cinnamon tree, has a spicy, sweet taste and a characteristic strong aroma
Star anise: It is the fruit of the star anise tree. It has a shape like a five-petal flower. Star anise has a spicy taste mixed with a slightly sweet taste and a faint aroma.
Fennel seeds: This is an herb originating from the Mediterranean region with many beneficial uses for health. Fennel seeds are hot and have a slightly sweet and salty taste.
The recipe for making five-spice powder varies between regions, and areas to suit salty dishes or sweet cakes. Today, some types of this powder available on the market contain chili powder or ginger powder.
2. Benefits of Five-Spice Powder
In addition to enhancing the flavor of salty and sweet dishes, the five-spice powder also brings many health benefits. Most of the ingredients that make up this powder are warm and moderately spicy. Therefore it can help stimulate the digestive system, disinfect and warm the stomach.
In addition, Szechwan pepper has anti-inflammatory and antibacterial benefits. Star anise treats symptoms of sore throat and dry cough. Cloves treat hiccups, and stomachaches, and are antiseptic. Cinnamon helps prevent diarrhea and treat colds. Lastly, fennel prevents flatulence, and bloating, and is a diuretic, etc.
3. How to use Five Spice Powder in cooking
Five-spice powder is a suitable spice for both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes. It is the harmony of spicy, bitter, salty, sweet, and sour. Therefore, it helps eliminate fishy odors and creates a delicious. It also stimulates flavor for the dish. Normally, people often use this spice in the preparation of stir-fried, fried, grilled, braised, and stewed dishes. Such as roast duck, stewed pork, BBQ, braised chicken, char siu, etc. In the West, the preparation of this powder is somewhat different from the East. So people use five-spice powder directly with cakes.
This powder is considered a spice that harmonizes yin and yang. So when used in cooking, it will bring users harmony of taste and color.
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Havigo Company Limited operates in the field of agricultural export. We wish to bring high-quality Vietnamese agricultural products such as spices, rice, beans, and fruits… to the world. We supply you with high-quality products at the best price. If you find interested in importing Cassia Cinnamon and Star Anise, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us for better support via WhatsApp: +84 979 58 58 56.