I really love good Chinese food. Makes me drool just thinking about it. Wouldn't it be nice to cook your own, at home? It makes a lot of sense, really. The ingredients are readily available in most areas, and I LOVE the idea of having nearly total control over what is in each dish. None of that nasty MSG stuff (monosodium glutamate), for instance. Or only ORGANIC veggies. And WAAAAY less oil. That's a GOOD thing, right?
If you keep a few key seasonings and condiments on hand, you will be ready to turn your favorite fresh veggies and protein of your choice into restaurant quality Chinese dishes nearly at the drop of a wok. It's a lot easier than you might think, but we'll get to the actual dishes another day. Right now, we're focusing on a particular product.
I live in a moderately large suburban area that is close to a moderately large city, and there happens to be a well-stocked Oriental market not far from my home. I knew I could get all of my condiments there, so off I trotted with visions of preparing homemade Kung Pao Chicken, Pork Fried Rice, and Spicy Stir-fried String Beans whirling around in my brain. I came home with a bag full of exotic flavors in exotic-looking jars and bottles . . . only to realize that I'd forgotten something. (Crud. I HATE when that happens. I really need to learn to shop with a LIST. Don't make the same mistake.) Anyway, the item I'd forgotten was Chinese 5-Spice. It's not a particularly unusual product, so I figured I'd just grab a bottle on my next visit to Safeway. Uh, right.
Safeway had it, but it was $5.19 for an ordinary size spice bottle. A couple of days later, I checked at Albertson's. Yikes! It was $7.79 for the same thing there.
God, I love the internet. A quick google search yielded a number of recipes for making my own Chinese 5-Spice blend, and there wasn't anything in it to justify the high prices of the ready-made stuff. The only ingredient that wasn't already in my cupboard was star anise, and I knew right where to go: the local Mexican tienda. They have an impressive array of spices in cellophane envelopes, hanging from pegs, and they are CHEAP. A package of star anise set me back a whopping $0.99, and it contained more than enough for my purpose. The other ingredients are ground cinnamon, whole cloves, fennel seed and black peppercorns.
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| LEFT: The spices needed to create your own Chinese 5-Spice blend are fennel seeds (upper left); whole cloves (upper right); whole peppercorns (center); ground cinnamon (lower right) and star anise (lower left). RIGHT: The inset shows a heaping teaspoon of the finished product. |
HOMEMADE CHINESE 5-SPICE BLEND
2 T. star anise (pods & seeds)
2 T. fennel seeds
2 T. whole cloves
2 T. whole black peppercorns
2 T. ground cinnamon
Grind the first 4 spices using either a mortar-and-pestle or an electric spice (coffee) grinder. I used my coffee grinder after sweeping it clean of all coffee residue; it made short work of even the fennel seeds, which are quite tough. (If you are using a mortar-and-pestle, you might wish to use pre-ground fennel seed because crushing them by hand is hard work.)
Once everything is fairly finely ground, add the ground cinnamon and give the whole business another go with the coffee grinder until it looks like the picture above. Transfer the ground mixture into a spice bottle or other storage container with an airtight lid. Label it so you don't forget what it is. It will keep for 6 months or so on the shelf, or considerably longer in the freezer.
This makes enough to fill most ordinary spice bottles very full. You might have to tap and settle it to get it all in.
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I found a recipe for Chinese 5-Spice Chicken that will be my test-recipe. I'll let you know how it works out!
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