From Antiquity, spices are used to make our palaces travel through the flavors. They are flavors of flavors.

We use spices in marinade with meat, seasoning a sauce, in final sprinkling ... They are there to add flavor. However, we should know that the use of spices must Follow a certain rule to give more concordance to our kitchen. So we can optimize food flavor.

Mainly, they get married with the fundamental senses: sweet, spicy, acid, and bitter. Depending on our culinary needs, there are appropriate spices for each meaning.

sweet

very popular with the greatest chefs around the world, vanilla is the spice par excellence for our sweet dishes. It is used in pod, powder or extract. We can also call on cinnamon to give more taste to our desserts. Cinnamon is presented in powder or stick. The also starry anise has a slightly sweet flavor. It also serves to flavor desserts. In some culinary crops, it is mixed with mulled wine in order to raise the taste of the latter. There are still other spices that go perfectly with sweet taste like: paprika, liquorice, macis, tonka bean, ginger, turmeric or fennel.

spice up

There are several spices that give the spicy taste, but the best known is undoubtedly pepper. It accompanies almost all of our dishes. It must be added at the end of cooking in order to keep all its fragrances. Pepper is a must in European cuisine. For amateurs of cooking, extra-fortune, Cayenne pepper is recommended. Be careful not to abuse it too much because it stings! Besides, he enters the composition of certain spicy sauces such as Tabasco. Ginger is also used to give a spicy flavor to our kitchen. Mixed with garlic, it is the ideal partner in a marinade with meat or fish.

acid

to give an acid flavor to our dishes, we can use amchoor. It’s a spice made from dried green mango. It is mainly presented in the shape of a powder. It will also make our taste buds travel to Southeast Asia, its region of origin. Sumac powder is also interesting for its tangy taste. The citrus fruits come in this register, we can cite the combava, small extremely fragrant lemon. A suspicion of these spices is advised to perfect the vinaigrette, soften the meat or marinate vegetables.

bitter

bitter taste is often noted as unpleasant, but subtly married with the suitable spices, we can concoct tasty dishes. The cocoa is the typical spice with a bitter taste. However, it ennobles gastronomy by its flavor. Several other spices have the distinction of being bitter, such as: citrus bark, thyme, sage, saffron, rosemary, nigella, etc ...

In any case, spices are made to raise the taste of food, you just have to find the harmony of flavors and follow your intuitions.

Max Daumin