Before making a good pot of marinade or base, we need to understand the properties of various spices, how to deal with them in order to make them constraints on each other, coordination and complementary, give full play to the flavor of the spices for us to use. Some spices have a foreign flavor, miscellaneous flavors, etc. need to do pre-treatment before use with, many people have ignored this, resulting in making the finished product flavor is not mellow enough. How do we do it? Here are a few points in detail.

Master the basic characteristics of spices

Different spice pretreatment is also different, according to the characteristics of the spice, can be roughly divided into sweet, sweet, spicy and bitter four categories, of which sweet and sweet similar, spicy and bitter similar.

Sweet aroma type: flavor, cumin, cinnamon, star anise, licorice, etc..

Sweet aroma type: lemongrass, white beans, lingzhi, etc..

Pungent aroma: dried ginger, galangal, etc.

Bitter spices are: Chen Pi, Grass Fruit, Sand Nuts, Angelica Dahurica, Sambucus, Cloves, etc.

Spices that can be colored are: turmeric, yellow gardenia, red currant rice, comfrey and so on.

Pre-treatment of spices

Remove the seeds, there is a part of the spices of the inner seeds is the source of odor, and even affect the taste of the whole dish, therefore, remove the seeds is sometimes necessary, such as grass berries and white kou, as well as peppercorns, if there is time you can experiment with the seeds of the peppercorns and the seeded peppercorns to simmer separately, it will be found that the soup simmered with the seeds is very bitter, of course, the peppercorns have to remove the seeds is more cumbersome, if you want to make the ingredients are not so delicate, there is also There is no need to waste time.

Soak, sweet and sweet type to increase the aroma of the main, you can use cold or warm water to soak to remove its own odor and impurities, such as incense leaves, cumin, etc., soak in room temperature water for 20 minutes can be fished out and drained and then do the next step in the process; such as cinnamon, star anise and other oily, slow spices, you can use lukewarm water to more soaking and then the next step in the process.

Pungent and bitter type due to the bitter, miscellaneous taste is heavy, generally to white wine or rice wine to soak, so that the pretreatment can make in the later use as much as possible to play out the flavor. For example, grass berries, nutmeg, first water to clean the surface of the impurities and smoky flavor, and then broken to remove the seeds, and then soaked in wine for about an hour can be the next step to use.

Spices to release the flavor method

Frying, spices after a simple pretreatment, although in addition to impurities and off-flavors, but can not be taken to the brine, but also need to go through a slow fire frying, otherwise its flavor or not be able to fully play out, because each spice of different sizes, thickness is not the same, so not all at the same time frying pan frying, otherwise it is easy to fry the paste or out of the fragrance of the fast by the taste of slow flavor coverage, like cinnamon, Anise, such as cinnamon, thick skin, slow spices can be the first pan frying, thin skin, fast incense leaves, cumin, etc. put after. Aroma type and bitter aroma type should be fried separately as well.

Grinding powder, as mentioned earlier, as each spice is not the same thickness, to release all the flavor in a short period of time is unlikely, so the proportion of good spices after pretreatment, frying and other processes after grinding into powder is necessary, this method can be applied to the hot pot base, there is no need to grind the brine in the simmering of the powder, on the contrary, it will affect the aesthetic and the color of the brine.

Ratio of spices

Due to a variety of spices in different places of origin, different growing seasons, different picking time, etc., these will affect the content of flavor, so there is no uniform ratio, in the use of “focus on flexibility, nobility and reasonableness”, should not be set in stone to copy the recipe of others, only after continuous use and accumulation, in order to find the right Their own “ratio”, the following share some commonly used spices ratio, I hope to help you.

Clove: 3/10 (10 kg of brine in the content of cloves is about 3 grams), peel: 6/10, licorice: 10/10, grass berries: 20/10, cardamom: 30/10, wood: 30/10, turmeric: 6/10

Spice inter-ingredient relationship:

Deodorization: cumin + thyme, cardamom + grass kernel, star anise, aroma

Deodorize seafood: coriander seed + grit, ginger + pepper

To increase the flavor: cinnamon + aroma, pepper + cardamom

Bactericidal effect: pepper + Angelica dahurica + ginger

Attachment Commonly used brine ratios:

30 kg of water, 300 grams of salt, 200 grams of rock sugar (fried sugar color), 25 grams of flavor, 40 grams of star anise, 40 grams of cinnamon, 40 grams of sorrel, 25 grams of aniseed, 10 grams of peppercorns, 15 grams of tangerine peel, 25 grams of grass nuts, 50 grams of kernels, 20 grams of cardamom, 15 grams of cardamom, 15 grams of angelica dahuricae, 5 grams of cloves, 1 Luo Han Guo, 20 grams of ginger, 25 grams of licorice, 20 grams of herbs, 20 grams of grass, 50 grams of citronella, 50 grams of citronella. grams, lemongrass 50 grams, yellow gardenia 20 grams.