Go to the Recipe: Sweet Spice
how long will this spice grind stay fresh/usable if stored correctly?
these are all vary durable flavors so it will last a long time. If you vacuum packed it and stored someplace cool and dark I doubt you could taste the difference after several months up to a year even.
- originally posted by Grant Lee Crilly
Is that a typo? That's a ton of star anise.
- originally posted by M
Used this sweet spice on my crispy duck skin disc and also added it to my Meiomi Pinot Duck Jus Sauce. Fantastic aromatic flavour.
Had a bunch of blood oranges and made the dried orange peel. Added 1 gram pequin chile to the mix and tossed some fingerling sweet potatoes in a little butter, juice of one of the oranges, and this sweet spice. Outstanding!
98.5% Yield. Couldn't get that last 1.5% to grind.
Wow, this makes your kitchen smell good! My wife walked in and said, "wow, what is that?" Kinda reminds me of Chinese 5-spice. I'm using it in some pumpkin caramel ice cream (kinda ripped-off from the Humphrey Slocombe ice cream book). Really nice. I got like 99.95 yield (give or take) with a couple of strainers in series. Close enough.
Is that 12 grams of scrapped seeds from vanilla beans or the entire bean?
This blend is so aromatic my go to for allot of game meat such as quail and duck
I use this with equal amounts of kosher salt as a dry rub for my chicken wings before I coast them with corn starch and deep fry them. Drain oil after frying crisp, toss with a hot sauce of your own or one of your choosing. DAMMMM!!!
I could live with 1.5.. maybe try a stone grinder ?
12g of vanilla, is that seeds from 2 beans or 12 beans? (a bean is about 6g, with 1g of seeds) or actually two whole beans?
12 grams of vanilla is from whole beans. All is ground into the powder.
Recipe above is correct.
Made this tonight. Forgot how pricey vanilla bean is, ugh. But there's enough to last a while, so unused spice is going into the freezer.
This smells amazing! Anyone tried a vodka infusion with this? If you have, did/would you use whole fresh spices instead of grinding everything? eg fresh ginger, whole peppercorns, etc
What about substituting the Chicken Liver for actual Foia Grass or Duck Liver???? Would it work with the same ingredients and the same proportion??
Do you grind up the vanilla bean pod and all or do you just add 12g of scraped out seeds?
I didn’t have a spice grinder so my solution was to pulse the ingredients together in a robocoup, tamis sift, return the remaining unsifted to the machine, repeat the process. The result was a nicely coarsed blend that I combined w Demerara sugar to line a glass rim for a cocktail.
Dunno…I made this as part of the liver pate recipe, thinking that I would also use the blend for something else. No idea what the recipe above is supposed to be for, but that ratio of star anise would only work if your star anise is very old. I used half the amount of star anise and the blend still largely is anise flavor. Maybe that will fade. But Anise/Ginger are exceptionally strong flavors to be vying with a subtle flavor like vanilla. The mélange just doesn’t seem in balance as written.
I use this on Lamb. Especially lamb that is cut up for a lamb pizza...
OH!!! Please update the recipe to specify this! I scraped out seeds, and it took a LOT of vanilla beans!!!! (I clicked on the vanilla link to read about it, and at the link it specifies that the seeds are the part used. I recognize that the link is generic information, but it certainly leads one to believe that the seeds are the part to use.)
I’m posting this here so it will be in the top of the comments - THEY MEAN YOU TO GRIND UP THE ENTIRE VANILLA POD. NOT JUST THE SEEDS.
Any advice on how to “powder” very moist vanilla beans? Should I dehydrate a bit first? My Madagascar beans are fairly short and 2g each.
My beans were pretty moist and I didn't really have any problems just going for it. My spice grinder is a little underpowered so it took more like 4 runs to get 98% yield
Agree! This was a complete bust for me and I cut the anise down 1/4.
Hello Mary. I've found them easiest to blend up if I slice them up into smaller chunks before blending. Similar in size to minced chives. I haven't found a need to dehydrate even moist beans.
Agree with you - I am also thinking a high quality Vanilla powder would be a better mix for this recipe. Would enjoy a professional assessment of the Vanilla ingredient intended. I scraped the pods and felt I had shorted the recipe. Will go back and add more whole vanilla bean.
It's hard to taste anything other than anis. Waste of good fresh vanilla
