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Chinese Five-Spice Powder Recipe

Highly aromatic Chinese five-spice powder enhances stir-fried vegetables, chicken, and especially fatty meats like pork and duck. Five-spice powder isn't hot...

By chow · From Open Recipes · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Star anise and cassia share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 6 recipes mention both. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

The recipe

About 1/3 cup

Ingredients

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

By chow. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Star anise + cassiatop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Star anise + fenneltop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together88 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-anethole (anise).

  3. Cassia + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together190 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Star anise + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together184 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Fennel + clovetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together209 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the cassia

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (star anise, fennel, clove):

  1. Cinnamonbetter flavor fit
  2. Thymebetter flavor fit
  3. Nutmegbetter flavor fit
  4. Cassiathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against star anise, fennel, clove. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).