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Herbs & Spices

Herbs & Spices

Food for Thought! Do you want to learn more about herbs, spices and other foods?

Definition & Use of various Herbs & Spices.

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Aniseed Usually used with traditional Maltese biscuits, like Biskuttini tar-Rahal, Qaghaq tal-Hmira or Qaghaq tal-Ghasel. All above-ground parts of the young anise plant are also eaten as a vegetable. The stems resemble those of celery in texture and are much milder in flavor than the fruits. Anise is believed to be a galactagogue, or a substance that increases lactation.

Aniseed Stars Refer to Aniseed. Used with meat dishes. The Chinese star anise also contains anethole but is botanically unrelated to anise. Because of its similar taste and aroma, it has recently come into use in the West as a (cheaper) substitute for anise in baking as well as in liquor production.

Basil Best with fish and bruschetta mix. Basil is most commonly used fresh, and in cooked recipes, is generally added at the last moment, as cooking destroys the flavor quickly. The fresh herb can be kept for a short time in plastic bags in the refrigerator, or for a longer period in the freezer, after being blanched quickly in boiling water. Mediterranean and Thai cuisines frequently use basil, the former frequently combining it with tomato. Basil is one of the main ingredients in pesto.

Cardamom This seed can be used with coffee and crushed with milk. The green seed pods of the plant are dried and the seeds inside the pod are used in Indian and Asian cuisine either whole or in a ground form. Ground cardamom is a primary ingredient of curry powder. In the Middle East, cardamom is used for coffee; in other countries such as Iran, it is used to flavor tea. Cardamom is also an ingredient of herbal teas from India, called "Yogi tea". The Indian state of Sikkim has the highest area under cultivation and production of the spice in India.

Chervil Used instead of aniseed. Chervil, sometimes called garden chervil, is a delicate annual herb, usually used to flavor mild-flavored foods such as poultry, some seafood, and young vegetables. It is a constituent of the French herb mixture ‘fines herbes’.

Coriander Seed Fish sauces, hamburgers and Maltese sausage. The dry fruits are known as coriander seeds or simply as coriander. They have a lemony citrus flavor when crushed. It is also described as warm, nutty, spicy, and orange-flavoured. They are usually dried but can be eaten green. Ground coriander is a major ingredient in curry powder, certain Belgian-style beers and other aromatic dishes.

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Herbs & Spices

Cumin Seed Lamb (especially curry). Pot roast items. Today, cumin is identified with Indian cuisine and Mexican cuisine. It is used as an ingredient of curry powder. Cumin can be found in some Dutch cheeses, and in some traditional breads from France. In herbal medicine, cumin is classified as stimulant, carminative, and antimicrobial. Cumin is hotter to the taste, lighter in color, and larger than caraway (Carum carvi), another umbelliferous spice that is sometimes confused with it.

Caraway Seed Swordfish and potatoes. Also with traditional sweets (Biskuttini tar-Rahal). The seed, usually used whole, has a pungent, anise-like flavor. The aroma comes from essential oils, mostly carvone and limonene. They are used as a spice in breads, liquors, casseroles, and other foods, especially in Central European and Scandinavian cuisine, for instance sauerkraut. It is also used to add flavor to cheeses. Akvavit and several liqueurs are also made with caraway, and a tea made from the seeds is good for colic. Caraway seed oil is also used as a fragrance component in soaps, lotions, and perfumes.

Cinnamon Curry sauce, sweet items (with apples) and potatoes. The best cinnamon comes from Sri Lanka, but the tree is also grown commercially at Tellicherry in Java, Sumatra, the West Indies, Brazil, Vietnam, Madagascar, and Egypt. Sri Lanka cinnamon of fine quality is a very thin smooth bark, with a light-yellowish brown color, a highly fragrant odor, and a peculiarly sweet, warm and pleasing aromatic taste.

Cinnamon Sticks Refer to cinnamon. Burn sticks for better curry. Used with custard.

Curry With rice and stews. A curry is any of a great variety of distinctively spiced dishes, best-known in Indian and Thai cuisine, but curry has been adopted into all of the mainstream cuisines of the Asia-Pacific area, from Pakistan in the west and even eventually to Japan. Along with tea, curry is one of the few dishes or drinks that is truly "pan-Asian", although its roots are from India.

Cloves Cooked fruits, curry sauces and sweets. Cloves can be used in cooking either whole or in a ground form, but they are extremely strong so they are used sparingly. The spice is used throughout Europe and Asia and is smoked in cigarettes (also known as kreteks) in Indonesia and in occasional coffee bars in the West, mixed with marijuana to create marijuana spliffs, and by members of the goth subculture.

Dill Fish and fish sauces, even cold sauces, e.g. Mayonnaise of Chantilly Sauce. Like caraway, its fernlike leaves are aromatic, and are used to flavor many foods, such as gravad laks (pickled salmon), borscht and other soups and pickles. The seeds are also used to flavor pickles. Dill leaves must be used fresh, as they lose their flavor rapidly if dried; even freeze-dried dill leaves have very little flavor. It is thus necessary to grow a supply of plants, rather than store the leaves.

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Herbs & Spices

Fennel Seeds Best with roast potatoes (Patata il-Forn). Many egg, fish, and other dishes employ fresh or dried fennel leaves. Florence fennel is a key ingredient in some Italian and German salads, often tossed with chicory and avocado. One may also blanch and/or marinate the leaves, or cook them in risotto. In all cases, the herbaceous leaves lend their characteristicallymild, anise-like flavor.

Fenugreek Seeds Bittersweet in flavor, Indian curried, vegetable dishes. Fenugreek is used both as a herb (the leaves) and a spice (the seed). The yellow, rhombic fenugreek seed is frequently used in the preparation of pickles, curry powders and pastes, and is often encountered in the cuisine of the Indian subcontinent and Thailand. The young leaves and sprouts of fenugreek are eaten as greens and the fresh or dried leaves are used to flavor other dishes.

Five Spice Chinese cuisine, stir fry items and chicken. a convenient seasoning for Chinese cuisine, particularly Cantonese cuisine. It incorporates the five basic flavors of Chinese cooking — sweet, sour, bitter, pungent, and salty. It consists of China Tung Hing cinnamon (actually a type of cassia), powdered cassia buds, powdered star anise and anise seed, ginger root, and ground cloves. Another recipe for the powder consists of cinnamon, black pepper, cloves, fennel seed, and star anise. Szechuan pepper can also be used. It is used in most recipes for Cantonese roasted duck, as well as beef stew.

Garlic / Flakes / Nibs With everything you like. Garlic is most often used as a seasoning or a condiment, and is believed by some to have some medicinal value, notably against hypertension. When crushed or finely chopped it yields allicin, a powerful antibiotic and anti-fungal compound. It also contains alliin, ajoene, enzymes, vitamin B, minerals, and flavonoids.

Ginger Potatoes, salmon, fish sauces, even beef and pork. In Japan, ginger is pickled to make beni shoga and gari or grated and used raw on tofu or noodles. In Western cuisine, ginger is traditionally restricted to sweet foods, such as ginger ale, gingerbread, ginger snaps (a type of cookie), ginger cake and ginger biscuits. Powdered dry ginger is used to add spiciness to gingerbread and other recipes. It tastes quite different from fresh ginger, and neither can be substituted for the other.

Gram Masala Indian cuisine, Lamb or Beef Curry. Used also with casseroles. Laurel Fish soups, curry stews and potatoes. Bay Laurel is the source of the bay leaves which are used for their flavor in cooking. It was also the source of the laurel wreath of ancient Greece, and therefore the expression of "resting on one's laurels".

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Herbs & Spices

Mace (Shell of the nutmeg). Used with Chinese cooking. Nutmeg and mace have similar taste qualities, nutmeg having a slightly sweeter and mace a more delicate flavor. Mace is often preferred in light-colored dishes for the bright orange, saffron-like color it imparts. In Indian cuisine, nutmeg is used almost exclusively in sweets. In European cuisine, nutmeg and mace are used especially in potato dishes and in processed meat products; they are also used in soups, sauces and baked goods. Japanese varieties of curry powder include nutmeg as an ingredient.

Marjoram Fish, tomato sauces. Marjoram is cultivated for its aromatic leaves, either green or dry, for culinary purposes; the tops are cut as the plants begin to flower and are dried slowly in the shade. It is often used in herb combinations such as Herbes de Provence and Za'atar.

Mint Preferably with fish, bruschetta, tomatoes and salads. Any plant with the aromatic family 'mentha'. The leaves are used to make essential oil or for seasoning and flavoring.

Mixed Herbs Fish, beef, pork, lamb, etc. Mustard / Seed / Powder Seeds to be used mainly with pork. Powder mainly for mayonnaise. Mustard seeds are important spices in many regional cuisines. The seeds, particularly the white ones, can also be ground into flour, and mixed to a thick paste with a little water to make the condiment mustard. Mustard oil can be extracted from the seeds. The ground mustard powder is usually mixed with ordinary flour to reduce the strength of the resulting condiment.

Nutmeg Cream potatoes, mashed potatoes, sweets. In Indian cuisine, nutmeg is used almost exclusively in sweets. In European cuisine, nutmeg and mace are used especially in potato dishes and in processed meat products; they are also used in soups, sauces and baked goods. Japanese varieties of curry powder include nutmeg as an ingredient.

Oregano Pizza and tomato sauces. Aromatic, warm and slightly bitter. Oregano largely varies in intensity: good quality is so strong that it almost numbs the tongue, but the cultivars adapted to colder climates have often unsatisfactory flavor. Oregano can effectively combined with pickled olives and capers or lovage leaves; other than most Italian herbs, oregano harmonizes even with hot and spicy food, as is popular in Southern Italy. The cuisines of other Mediterranean countries make less use of it, but it is of some importance for Spanish, French and Greek cooking.

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Herbs & Spices

Paprika Hungarian Beef Goulash and Fried Potatoes. Paprika peppers are elongated or round fruit, bright red, yellow, or green in color. Hungary is probably the world's leading producer of paprika. In the United States, California and Texas are the main producers. Paprika is often eaten as a ground powder but sometimes as a fresh vegetable. Some specialty varieties of paprika are hot but the generally available ground preparation is quite mild.

Parsley With everything. In parts of Europe, and particularly in West Asia, many foods are served with chopped parsley sprinkled on top. The fresh flavor of parsley goes extremely well with fish. Parsley is essential to several West Asian salads, e.g. tabbouleh which is the national dish of Lebanon. In Southern and Central Europe, parsley is part of bouquet garni, a bundle of fresh herbs used to flavor stocks, soups and sauces.

Peppercorns White, green, pink and black used mainly to make hot sauces, Peppered Steak or Fish.

Pickling Spice Used for marinating or preserving food.

Pimento (Also known as allspice). Pizza, salad and beef sauces. The flesh of the sweet pimento is sweet, succulent and more aromatic than that of the red bell pepper. These pimentos are the familiar red stuffing found in green olives. Some varieties of the pimento type are hot including the Floral Gem and Santa Fe Grande varieties.

Poppyseed Black seed used to make bread. Similar to sesame seed. A poppy is an annual, biennial, or perennial plant of the Family Papaveraceae, typically with showy flowers borne one per stem, native mainly to the Northern hemisphere and often grown for ornament, opium or food. 15–100 cm high, it yields a milky sap (latex) and bears large lobed or divided leaves and white, pink, orange, or red flowers, sometimes with a dark centre, with 4–6 petals around a whorl of stamens. The fruit is a capsule with pores through which the seeds are dispersed.

Rosemary Preferably with roast chicken. The fresh and dried leaves are used frequently in traditional Mediterranean cuisine as a herb; a tisane can also be made from them. Rosemary can be added as an unusual extra flavoring in lemonade.

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Herbs & Spices

Saffron Used mainly with rice and a substitute for curry sauce. Saffron is a vital cooking ingredient of many Arabian, Central Asian, European and Indian dishes. In European cuisine, it is used in many famous dishes, including the Spanish paella and Fabada Asturiana, the French bouillabaisse, and the Italian risotto alla milanese.

Sage Veal Saltimbocca, Rabbit, Parma Ham. As a herb, sage is considered to have a slight peppery flavor. In Western cooking, it is used for flavoring fatty meats (especially as a marinade), cheeses, and some drinks. In Britain and Flanders, sage is used with onion for poultry or pork stuffing and also in sauces. In French cuisine, sage is used for cooking white meat and in vegetable soups. Germans often use it in sausage dishes. Sage is also common in Italian cooking. In the Balkans and the Middle East, it is used when roasting mutton.

Mixed Spice With sweet items, rabbit and stews.

Tarragon Egg, fish and poultry dishes, savory butters, salads and vegetables. Tarragon has a spicy flavor reminiscent of anise. French tarragon is the variety generally considered best for the kitchen. It cannot be grown from seed. Russian tarragon can be grown from seed but is much weaker in flavor.

Thyme Tomato sauce, fish and beef. Thyme is often used to flavor meats, soups and stews. It is used in French cuisine, where it is an important element in a bouquet garni, as well as in Herbes de Provence. It is also widely used in Caribbean cuisine. In Jordan the condiment zahtar contains thyme as vital ingredient.

Turmeric Food coloring for rice and paste. Bitter in taste. Turmeric is a spice commonly used in curries and other South Asian cooking. Its active ingredient is curcumin. It is a significant ingredient in most commercial curry powders. Turmeric is also used to give a yellow color to some prepared mustards, canned chicken broth, and other foods (often as a much cheaper replacement for saffron).

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