Five-spice powder () is a spice mixture of five or more spices used predominantly in almost all branches of

Chinese cuisine Chinese cuisine encompasses the numerous cuisines originating from China, as well as overseas cuisines created by the Chinese diaspora. Because of the Chinese diaspora and historical power of the country, Chinese cuisine has influenced many ot ...

. It is also used in Hawaiian cuisine and

Vietnamese cuisine Vietnamese cuisine encompasses the foods and beverages of Vietnam. Meals feature a combination of five fundamental tastes ( vi, ngũ vị, links=no, label=none): sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and spicy. The distinctive nature of each dish reflec ...

. The five flavors of the spices (sweet, bitter, sour, salty, and savory) refers to the five traditional Chinese elements.

Ingredients

While there are many variants, a common mix is:Chinese Five Spice
at The Epicentre *

Star anise ''Illicium verum'' is a medium-sized evergreen tree native to northeast Vietnam and southwest China. A spice commonly called star anise, staranise, star anise seed, star aniseed, star of anise, Chinese star anise, or badian that closely resembl ...

() *

Cloves Cloves are the aromatic flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae, ''Syzygium aromaticum'' (). They are native to the Maluku Islands (or Moluccas) in Indonesia, and are commonly used as a spice, flavoring or fragrance in consumer products, s ...

() * Chinese cinnamon () * Sichuan pepper () *

Fennel Fennel (''Foeniculum vulgare'') is a flowering plant species in the carrot family. It is a hardy, perennial herb with yellow flowers and feathery leaves. It is indigenous to the shores of the Mediterranean but has become widely naturalized ...

seeds () Other recipes may contain

anise Anise (; '), also called aniseed or rarely anix is a flowering plant in the family Apiaceae native to Eurasia. The flavor and aroma of its seeds have similarities with some other spices and herbs, such as star anise, fennel, licorice, and ta ...

seed,

ginger root Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice and a folk medicine. It is a herbaceous perennial which grows annual pseudostems (false stems made of the rolled bases of lea ...

nutmeg Nutmeg is the seed or ground spice of several species of the genus ''Myristica''. ''Myristica fragrans'' (fragrant nutmeg or true nutmeg) is a dark-leaved evergreen tree cultivated for two spices derived from its fruit: nutmeg, from its seed, an ...

turmeric Turmeric () is a flowering plant, ''Curcuma longa'' (), of the ginger family, Zingiberaceae, the rhizomes of which are used in cooking. The plant is a perennial, rhizomatous, herbaceous plant native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asi ...

, ''

Amomum villosum ''Wurfbainia villosa'', also known by its basionym ''Amomum villosum'', (Chinese: (Chinese: 砂仁; pinyin: shārén) is a plant in the ginger family that is grown throughout Southeast Asia and in South China. Similar to cardamom, the plant is c ...

'' pods (), ''Amomum

cardamom Cardamom (), sometimes cardamon or cardamum, is a spice made from the seeds of several plants in the genera ''Elettaria'' and ''Amomum'' in the family Zingiberaceae. Both genera are native to the Indian subcontinent and Indonesia. They are rec ...

um'' pods (),

licorice Liquorice (British English) or licorice (American English) ( ; also ) is the common name of ''Glycyrrhiza glabra'', a flowering plant of the bean family Fabaceae, from the root of which a sweet, aromatic flavouring can be extracted. The liq ...

, Mandarin orange peel or galangal. In Southern China, ''

Cinnamomum loureiroi Saigon cinnamon (''Cinnamomum loureiroi'', also known as Vietnamese cinnamon or Vietnamese cassia and ''quế trà my'', ''quế thanh'', or " quế trà bồng" in Vietnam) is an evergreen tree indigenous to mainland Southeast Asia. Saigon cinna ...

'' and Mandarin orange peel are commonly used as substitutes for '' Cinnamomum cassia'' and cloves respectively. These ingredients collectively produce southern five-spice powders' distinctive, slightly different flavor profile. In one study, the potential antioxidant capacities of Chinese five-spice powder (consisting of Szechuan pepper, fennel seed, cinnamon, star anise, and clove) with varying proportion of individual spice ingredients was investigated through four standard methods. The results suggest that clove is the major contributor to the high antioxidant capacities of the five-spice powder whereas the other four ingredients contribute to the flavor.

Use

Five spice may be used with fatty meats such as pork, duck or goose. It is used as a

spice rub Spice rub is any mixture of ground spices that is made to be rubbed on raw food before the food is cooked. The spice rub forms a coating on the food. The food can be marinated in the spice rub for some time for the flavors to incorporate int ...

for chicken, duck, pork and seafood, in

red cooking Red cooking, also called Chinese stewing, red stewing, red braising, or flavor potting, is a slow braising Chinese cooking technique that imparts a reddish-brown coloration to the prepared food. There are two types of red cooking: *Hongshao ...

recipes, or added to the breading for fried foods. Five spice is used in recipes for

Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...

roasted duck, as well as beef stew. It is used as a marinade for Vietnamese broiled chicken. The five-spice powder mixture has followed the

Chinese diaspora Overseas Chinese () refers to people of Chinese birth or ethnicity who reside outside Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. As of 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese. Terminology () or ''Hoan-kheh'' () in Hokkien, refe ...

and has been incorporated into other national cuisines throughout Asia. In

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

, some restaurants place a shaker of the spice on each patron's table. A seasoned salt can be easily made by dry-roasting common

salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantitie ...

with five-spice powder under low heat in a dry pan until the spice and salt are well mixed. Five-spice powder can also add complexity and savoriness to sweets and savory dishes alike. It has a traditional use as an antiseptic and used to cure indigestion.

References

{{Cantonese cuisine Cantonese cuisine Hawaiian cuisine Herb and spice mixtures Powders

Ingredients

Use

See also

References