11 recipes featuring 5 spice powder, ranging from the traditional meat (usually pork) to vegetables and even dessert!
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Since I just shared a recipe for a 5 spice powder home blend, followed by a tau yew bak recipe (pork braised in soy sauce and 5 spice powder), it seems only natural to follow up with a post on how to use 5 spice powder. After all, it's not one of the most commonly used spices in the kitchen, so you may need some inspiration! 🙂 I often do, if not my McCormick bottle just lies there till it's tasteless. (Which is why I now make my own homemade 5-spice powder instead of buying it from the supermarket- it taste so much more vivid that way too!)
What is it?
5-spice powder is a powder ground from spices that are commonly used in almost all branches of Chinese cuisine. (It is also used in Vietnamese and Hawaiian food.) The "5" in "5-spice" actually refers to the 5 Chinese traditional food elements- sweet, bitter, sour, salty, and umami (savoriness)- and not the number of spices in the powder. Hence, some 5-spice powders actually have more than 5 spices in them. In fact, there is even a less-common 13-spice powder in Chinese cooking!
I guess you could say it's a bit like the Asian equivalent of all-spice?
Ingredients
The most commonly used spices in 5-spice powder are fennel seeds (xiǎohuíxiāng 小茴香), star anise (bājiǎo 八角), cassia or Chinese cinnamon (ròuguì 肉桂), Sichuan pepper (huājiāo 花椒) and a little bit of cloves (dīngxiāng 丁香- this spice can be overpowering so needs to be used in moderation).
However, it is not unheard of to use ginger root, sand ginger, nutmeg, turmeric. anise seed. cardamomum, tangerine peel, galangal and licorice in this Asian powder.
Expiry
Like most spices, 5 spice powder doesn't expire or go bad so to speak. (If stored improperly or if it gets wet etc, it may go moldy- in that case, toss and don't use!) However, as time goes by, the powder will start losing flavour.
This happens quite quickly which is why I advocate keeping the whole spices instead (these keep their fragrance for a longer time) then grinding to produce homemade 5-spice powder whenever you need it.
Asian Meat recipes
5 spice powder is often used in Asian meat dishes, such as bak kwa (a pork jerky that is especially popular during Chinese New Year). As you can see from the recipes below, 5-spice powder goes really well with pork!
If you don't have the 2.5 hours that the above recipe calls for, try this easy and "quick" version (done in 50 minutes):
Savoury Snacks
Asian Vegan recipes
5 spice powder is most traditionally used with meat- especially pork- so I specifically decided to include a vegan section for this list!
Sweet foods
Definitely the most intriguing 5 spice powder recipes that I came across were the chocolate and 5 spice powder ones. I've only included 1- the chocolate rolls below- as it seems that you can just use the same 5 spice powder-chocolate proportions in your other dessert recipes and experiment from there! Have you eaten any 5 spice powder desserts before?
PS If you're not a chocolate fan, Gary Jones (who works with Raymond Blanc) has kindly shared a mulled wine fruits and ice cream recipe that uses 5 spice powder, courtesy of the Great British Chefs website.
Which of these is your favourite? You may also like these recipes:
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