Five-spice powder

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This article is about Chinese five-spice mixture. For Bengali five-spice mixture, see Panch phoron.

Five-spice powder
Image:Five spice powder.jpg
Chinese name
Simplified:	五香粉
Traditional:	五香粉
Hanyu Pinyin:	wǔxiāngfěn

Five-spice powder is a convenient seasoning in Chinese 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 huajiao (Szechuan pepper), bajiao (star anise), rougui (cassia), cloves, and fennel seeds. It is used in most recipes for Cantonese roasted duck, as well as beef stew.

The formulae are based on the Chinese philosophy of balancing the yin and yang in food. A pinch of the powder goes a long way.

Although this spice is used in restaurant cooking, many Chinese households never use it in day-to-day cooking. In Hawaii some restaurants have it on the table.

A versatile seasoned salt can be easily made by stir-frying common salt with five spice powder under low heat in a dry pan until the spice and salt are well mixed.