chinese 5 spice powder

By foodiva

Ingredients

• 20 g Sichuan Peppercorn
• 20 g star anise
• 10 g fennel seeds
• 10 g cinnamon or cinnamon powder
• 8 g cloves

Details

Servings 1
Preparation time 5mins
Cooking time 15mins
Adapted from chinasichuanfood.com

Preparation

Step 1

Stir fry

Seeing the name, the first impression is that this mixture contains five types of spicy materials. Basically five spice powder is mainly used in braised dishes or roasted meat especially pork, beef or fish.

The five basic ingredients for Chinese five spice powder are star aniseed (大料), fennel seeds(小茴香), cloves(丁香), Sichuan peppercorn(花椒) and cinnamon(肉桂). Based on the five basic ingredients, other spices might also be added due to different recipes. In fact, there are more than 13 common Chinese spices used in Chinese dishes. You can adjust the amount according to the basic ratio or change certain some ingredients accordingly. For example, if you certainly reduce the amount of cinnamon if you do not strong cinnamon taste since it might cause some bitterness. That’s why I am always trying to make homemade version sauces, spices and seasonings. We will have control of almost everything.

Health tip: Five-spice powder combines the advantages of various spice and an appreciate amount can help to improve body immunity. However pregnant woman should not eat too much and avoid it in early pregnancy.

4. Use it in stir fry recipes

Break cinnamon and star anise. And then put the two ingredients in your grinder to ground them to powder.

Mix with other ingredients and continue grind until all the ingredients are well grounded.

Filter large particles out; and keep the filtered ground powder mixture in airtighter container until use.

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