Cooking tips, tricks, and advice from professional kitchens
Posts tagged star anise
How to Make Chai Tea
Feb 28th
Making Chai Tea
Tired of that cup of Folgers every morning? Want a little change from Starbucks? Well, next time you want a little pick-me-up, try brewing a cup (or 4, in our recipe) of chai tea.
What is Chai Tea?
For those unfamiliar with chai, it is black tea infused with aromatic spices, finished with milk and sugar. Virtually any blend of ‘sweet’ and ‘warming’ spices are a good match for chai tea. Sweet spices are those that pair well, or are enhanced by sweetness: Nutmeg, allspice, vanilla, fennel seed, star anise, cassia and cinnamon to name a few. Warming spices include peppercorns and ginger, as well as cinnamon.
There are brands of sweetened chai syrup on the market, as well as prepackaged chai flavoured teabags, but they can’t compete with the intoxicating aroma and deep flavours of real chai tea. Making the real thing is about as difficult as boiling a pot of water – you just need a few things on hand.
As with many Indian dishes, there are limitless regional differences with chai tea. Some recipes omit ginger or cloves, some add other spices, and I’ve even heard of chilies being added. Preparation methods differ as well, so remember, there is no truly ‘right way’ to make chai tea.
How do I make Chai Tea?
Ingredients for 1 Litre of Chai Tea
3 Tbsp Black tea – Use a good quality black tea. Something you would drink on its own. If you don’t have any on hand, 4 or 5 Tetley tea bags will do. I normally drink Red Rose tea, but for some reason Tetley seems to make nicer, less tannic masala chai.
Spices -
- 3 inches cinnamon stick
- 10 green cardamom pods
- 1/2 inch ginger, sliced thin
- 10 whole cloves
- 10 black peppercorns
- Place 2 1/2 cups of water, and all of the spices in a pot, and bring to a boil.
- Once boiled, cover your pot, and turn to low heat, or turn it off. Let the spices steep for 10 minutes.
- Add 1 1/2 cups milk, 2-4 Tbsp sugar, brown sugar, or honey and bring back to a boil.
- Once boiled, turn heat to low.
- Add tea leaves and steep on low heat for 10-15 minutes.
- Strain and serve.
Chai Tea - Ready to Strain
Some additional spices you may want to try adding to your chai:
- Star anise
- Dried orange peel
- Vanilla bean (or just the saved pods, after you scrape the seeds)
- Nutmeg
Delicious honey garlic pork ribs
Mar 30th
Pork is some of the cheapest meat on the market right now, and pork ribs are among the cheapest cuts of pork. A side of pork ribs, also called spare ribs, is easy and not at all labor intensive to cook, either.
You may come across a cut called “side ribs” as well. The only difference is that side ribs often lack the belly portion and are just an 11-13 rib strip.
Being an apartment dweller, I won’t touch on the much loved barbecue ribs – but here’s a simple way to make some delicious honey garlic ribs.
As usual, this recipe is more about the method rather than quantities of ingredients, so add more or less of whatever you please. I’d recommend going light on the star anise though.
Ingredients:
A white onion or two, coarsely chopped [or quartered]
2 star anise
4 cloves garlic, smashed
for every
2 strips of spare ribs or 4 strips of side ribs
Scale as necessary
Add the pork ribs, onion, star anise, and garlic to a pot and cover with cold water. Bring the water to a low simmer and skim the top as necessary. Simmer but do not boil the ribs until the meat is tender – this will probably take 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Boiling the ribs will cause the meat to toughen and become stringy rather than tender with that melt-in-your-mouth quality. The ribs will be infused with the flavour of the garlic and onion, and the star anise will enhance the pork flavour.
Remove the ribs and let them cool until you can cut them into portions, or leave them whole, whatever you choose.
For the sauce, eyeball it to suit your tastes. Mince some garlic into 2-3mm size pieces and mix with some honey, a dash of soy sauce, and a little sambal olek. The large size of the garlic pieces means that they’re more likely to caramelize rather than burn.
Preheat your oven to 375F and place your rib portions on a silpat or aluminum foil on a baking sheet. Sauce the ribs [reserve a bit of sauce], and bake until the sauce turns sticky – depending on a lot of things, it could be anywhere between 5 and 15 minutes – flick on that oven light and check, as long as the sauce isn’t burning, you’re good. Take the ribs out when the sauce is sufficiently sticky.
Add more sauce and glaze again if you like, otherwise eat.
Chinese Five Spice
Mar 24th
Five spice is Chinese and Vietnamese spice blend containing somewhere between 5 and 7 spices. It is commonly used on roast or braised meats with braised pork belly, beef brisket, or roast duck being a few classics. There are many recipes for this blend, but common ingredients are Sichuan pepercorns, cloves, cinnamon, anise seed, star anise, and ground ginger.
Five spice may be found in Chinese or Southeast Asian markets, but it is easy to make your own if you have a well stocked spice cupboard.
The five spice recipe I’ve been carting around for some time is:
- 30ml Sichuan peppercorns [black peppercorns may be substitued, but you'll lose the lemony flavour of the Sichuan pepper]
- 10ml fennel seed
- 10ml ground ginger
- 3 star anise pods
- 6 whole cloves
- 6 inches of cinnamon stick broken up
Yes, I know it has six spices.
Star Anise
Mar 23rd
Star anise is the fruit of a stout evergreen tree called Illicium verum. Both the star shaped fruit and round seeds are dried and used as a spice. Unlike fennel seed, the seeds of the star anise fruit have little anise flavour. It is the woody fruit body that packs the most punch.
The distinctive flavour of star anise is due to anethole, the same chemical that gives anise and aniseed their dominant flavour.
According to Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking, when star anise is cooked with onions, ‘sulfur-phenolic aromatics’ are produced that ‘intensify the meatiness of the dish’.
Star anise is a component of Chinese five spice powder, and found frequently in Chinese cooking. It is also used to flavour Vietnamese Pho.
Star anise can be ground for home made five spice powder in a coffee grinder or food processor, but be sure to sift out any woody chunks afterward – they will not soften when cooked.
Star anise can be purchased at many Asian markets, and even at most supermarkets [at least in the Vancouver area]. It is relatively cheap, with a 100g bag running $2.50 or so. Whole star anise can be kept for many months in an airtight container.