mystery spice for Chinese beef stew?

[misterchang]

Hi - just had a homecooked lunch with my parents: beef stew...fried rice...cabbage soup with mushrooms & sardines. For the beef stew my stepmom used a spice that is called "eight angles" in Chinese (after the shape of the seed pod -- see photo, with basil leaf for scale). They couldn't tell me the English name...anyone know? Thanks.

[Anonimo]

This is the mystery to me:
"cabbage soup with mushrooms & sardines".

For real?

[ChiliDude]

I have another question relating to your favorite comfort food, scallion pancakes. Are the scallions known as 'jiao cai?' The reason for my query is that I have jiao cai or 'garlic chive' growing in my small garden, and the plants are 35+ years old. Jiao cai is a hardy plant that does not winter kill, and comes up every spring.

[Chemicalkinetics]

Jiao Cai (better known as garlic chive or Chinese chive) is definitely not what most people use for scallion pancakes. Scallion is scallion. This is off topic. If you want to continue this topic, it may be best to make a new post.

[scoopG]

No, scallions are 蔥 Cong1. Perhaps you are thinking of 韭菜 jiu3 Cai4 which are leeks or garlic chives.

[ChiliDude]

Thanks for the information. I recognize the character for jiu3 as the one written down for me by the person who gave me the original garlic chive plants more than 35 years ago.

[scoopG]

Glad to know they are still growing strong!

[rinkatink888]

MMmmmm, this reminds me it time to make this style of beef stew, but mine has beef tendons and daikon also. It's so good.

[Chemicalkinetics]

Me too. I often (not always) put daikon.

[ChiliDude]

Just out of curiosity, did your stepmom refer to the star anise as 'bot guok' or 'pak kok?' The former being in Cantonese, the latter is Mandarin. Or was it referred to in a dialect from a particular locality?

[scoopG]

Pak Kok must be another dialect. In Mandarin, star anise is 八角 - Ba1 Jiao3.

[davkiang]

Very nice. Beef stew is one of my fav dishes, just for the reason of making noodles later. Do you have an idea of the recipe?

[misterchang]

Thanks. FYI, the leftovers were reincarnated as beef noodle soup with fish cake, poached egg, and shiitake...

[bushwickgirl]

and look delicious!

[Chemicalkinetics]

Exactly what everyone said. It is called Star Anise. In Chinese, eight corners (well, that is a partial name anyway).

[amokscience]

Star Anise

[bushwickgirl]

Without a doubt.

[wattacetti]

Relatively rare to see them with their stalks still attached.

[bushwickgirl]

True, don't think I've actually ever...

[Caroline1]

I guess it depends on where you buy it. I've never bought whole star anise that didn't have at least some stems.

[greygarious]

Star anise is one of the ingredients in 5-spice powder, by the way, so it's used in lots of Chinese dishes without being directly mentioned..

[ipsedixit]

Grind them up in a mortar & pestle, and incorporate it into your chocolate cake. You'll be amazed at the results. Gives your chocolate a totally new deepr and more complex aroma and a richer flavor.

[buttertart]

Wow, must try. How much to an average cake recipe?

[ipsedixit]

I use about 1/2 teaspoon of ground star anise for each 1/2 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder that you use in your cake.

[bushwickgirl]

Must try.

[amokscience]

Just tried. Good flavor, just a hint of 'something' that'll leave you wondering.

[bushwickgirl]

I do like to leave 'em wondering.

[GlobalTable]

Yum! I love the idea of adding it to a chocolate cake.... do you like it better than adding coffee?

[ipsedixit]

Glad you liked it and you described it better than I did "just a hint of 'something' that'll leave you wondering"!

[amokscience]

Thank you for suggesting it. Made a drive-by thread a lot more rewarding. There are going to be a lot of impressed people at work this week :)

[ipsedixit]

amok,

May I ask what dessert or pastry you made? Was it a chocolate cake, or something else? Always looking for new ideas ...

I've added star anise to all sorts of things (with varying levels of success), incl. the aforementioned chocolate cake, as well as brownies, tiramisu, coffee cake, banana cake, meringue cookies, and even ganache.

[amokscience]

Used it with brownies. I added either a half or full teaspoon of freshly ground star anise to a reduced (half?) batch. They disappeared early at work and I've had some positive queries about what's different.

Going to make chocolate ice cream with star anise later.

[ipsedixit]

A word to the wise about using star anise for ice cream.

It's better to steep the whole cloves in the milk / custard mixture and then remove when making ice cream. I've found ground star anise in ice cream doesn't really provide much flavor -- something about the cold doesn't really bring out its flavor. Of course, your results may vary. Good luck and enjoy.

[alkapal]

ipse is suffering identity crisis with all the changing avatars! ;-).

what does this one mean?

[ipsedixit]

Eh, just something that appeared when I dropped my ink pen on a white piece of paper ...

[alkapal]

inscrutable.

[ipsedixit]

That's what some people say about my cooking ... esp. my Garbage Can Carrot Cake.

[buttertart]

I am definitely going to try this. Thanks, sir!

[Caroline1]

Or you can add star anise to a white cake and pass it off as root beer cake. VERY passable flavor!

[funniduck]

really? I'm totally trying this. How much do I add?

[Caroline1]

Depends on how many cake layers you're making, but for two 9" layers I'd start off with a teaspoon of ground and taste the batter. You can always add more ut it's darn difficult to take out.

[MartiniGenie]

I'm in, too! Do you add ground or steep the whole anise in a liquid before adding?

[Caroline1]

Just use the ground star anise. Once you get into steeping that pushes you into liquid balance. The ground is much easier!

[MartiniGenie]

Will do, thanks. What kind of frosting would you do for this cake? 7 minute?

[alkapal]

that is interesting!

[MartiniGenie]

Yuppers, alkapal!