Chinese five spice is a blend of at least five distinct spices. Although the name indicates that only five spices would be the ingredients, some versions use up to eight ingredients to make the spice blend. This mixture of spices is an consuming mixture of ingredients that will excite the sweet, sour, salty, bitter and pungent taste buds on your tongue.

Commercial preparations of five spice powder have at least a few ingredients in common. The five ingredients that are typically gift contain star anise, fennel, cinnamon, clove and Szechuan pepper. Szechuan pepper may be replaced with the more common black peppercorns.

Chinese Five Spice Powder – A Savory Blend of Spices

Chinese Five Spice Powder – A Savory Blend of Spices

Depending on the brand of this spice blend, other ingredients may be gift or replaced for the primary five spices. To check out the range of ingredients in five spice powder, several commercial preparations were reviewed. The ingredients are listed below in the order that they appeared on the spice jar labels. This means that the ingredients are listed in decreasing order of quantity gift in the spice blend.

Commercial Chinese Five Spice Ingredients

Brand 1 – star anise, black pepper, cloves, fennel, cinnamon.
Brand 2 – star anise, black pepper, cloves, fennel, ginger.
Brand 3 – cinnamon, star anise, fennel, cloves, ginger, licorice, szechuan peppercorn, white pepper.
Brand 4 – cinnamon, clove, fennel, star anise, szechwan pepper.
Brand 5 – ginger, coriander, cinnamon, cumin, orange peel.
Brand 6 – star anise, fennel, cinnamon, clove, szechuan pepper.

Spice

Spice

Spice

Reviewing that list you can see that there is a great range among the five spice blends. Not one spice is gift in all the brands. Brands 1, 4 and 5 have the same ingredients, although they’re not in the same proportions, and black pepper has been replaced for Szechuan pepper in Brand 1. Even though the ingredients are essentially the same, the tastes would be distinct due to the distinct relative amounts of spices.

Ginger appears to be a common additive and lends pungency to the mixture. Brand 5 is the most distinct from the rest. None of the other spices contain orange peel, and this one omits star anise that all the other five spice powders contain. The episode here is that it will pay you to read the ingredient labels on the spice blends that you purchase. Alternatively, you could make your own. It’s not that hard to do.

Homemade spice blends can be varied to one’s taste. One method for five spice powder is as follows: 4 parts fennel seed, 2 parts cinnamon stick, 2 parts black peppercorns, 2 parts anise seed, 1 part whole cloves, and optionally, 1 part coriander seed and 1 part cumin seed. All spices are dry roasted in a heavy skillet to bring out their aroma and flavor. The spices are stirred enduringly while being roasted until all the spice aromas can be detected. The mixture is then cooled down completely. A mortar and pestle could be used to crush the spices into a powder, but a spice mill or coffee polisher will do a more unblemished job. Transfer the five spice blend powder to a labeled spice jar and enjoy.

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