I was watching an episode of Good Eats the other day in which Alton was making a spaghetti sauce recipe. It involved simmering a mix of chuck + pork, plus other stuff (including evaporated milk. Odd). Among the seasonings was, of all things, star anise.
I was at a farm store yesterday, and they had assorted dried herbs and spices at fantastic prices.
Including Star Anise. Which isn’t exactly your everyday oregano, chives etc. and in fact it’s been a while since I’ve even noticed the stuff at the grocery store.
So I nabbed a package. It’s about a half-cup of that yummy-smelling stuff.
Only thing is… aside from the Good Eats recipe, what on earth shall I do with it?
It’s a commonly used spice in Chinese cooking- not really in Chinese-American food, but definitely stuff you would get in China. I’d suggest trying red-cooked chicken, a sort of Chinese stew with braised chicken, soy sauce, ginger, and star anise that is just absolutely delicious. If you don’t like that recipe, try any number of other red-cooked dishes!
Star Anise works great in both savory and sweet dishes. Did you but the whole pods or the powder? Do you own a spice grinder? If you only have the pods, your best bet would be to use them in flavouring asian soups. If you have the powder, mix it with some flour when you’re battering something or with some powdered sugar to sprinkle on desserts.
Star anise really adds something to pot roast and beef stew - a few whole pods adds richness. Be careful not to use too much, as this is a pretty strong spice.
Star anise is, IMO, an essential part of any “chinese” spice mix, like five-spice powder. Combine with ground ginger, pepper , cinnamon and cloves, and use as a rub for roast chicken or duck. Use very sparingly.
If you want to get rid of a lot of star anise at one time, I present my star anise and caramel panna cotta. Basically, boil sugar and water until it caramelises, add a little bit of hot water and heavy cream. Add a couple of star anise and bring to a boil, then allow to infuse for a couple of hours (overnight’d be great). Add gelatin and strain into moulds.
Another place where star anise and caramel go well together is on top of grilled pineapple. Crush star anise with sugar in a mortar and sprinkle on top of the pineapple. Grill.
On the Alton Brown recipe, it sounds pretty similar to how I now make my ragus. One star to 1kg of meat is a decent ratio; enhances the meat flavour without becoming overpowering. I tend to stick mine in a sachet, as the pods have a tendency to open up in stews and the seeds fall out, which can make for a nasty surprise in the finished item (like cardamom pods, but harder to see). The powdered milk doesn’t surprise me either; I understand cream is a pretty common thing to be added to “proper” ragus in Italy. A while back I stuck a little blue cheese in mine on a whim, and the extra richness the dairy brought was amazing.
Otherwise, yeah, grind your own five spice powder and get roasting or braising, it’s ace. Here’s a recipe for five spice braised pork belly that you might like…
Whole pods, and no spice grinder (well, except for the pepper mill). The few things I’ve made that involve crushing whole spices, I use my garlic press - which wouldn’t quite work for this, I expect
Your pepper grinder should work. You may have anisy pepper for a while after though. I eventually bought a coffee grinder and dedicated it to spices. I recently bought star anise as well. I found it at an asian grocery. It came in much larger bags than the one you have.
my wife soes a wicked bbq suace and the essential ingredients are soy suace, honey and whole star anise. she throws in an assortment of other thhings but theser are the key ingredients…
I hesitate to tell you this, because I might have it quite wrong. Some National Public Radio program said star anise is an ingredient in Tamiflu, or some other H1N1 related drug. The point was not that star anise is necessarily beneficial in itself, but that the spice might become scarce enough to be more expensive.
Yummmmm.
