PADDLINGgourmet by tarmo poldmaa Paddling with FIVE Spices
Here's a meal that will really get your paddling partners to practice full torso rota- tions—Chinese five-spice stir-fry.
Chinese five-spice powder is a unique combination of Szechuan peppercorns, star anise, cinnamon, fennel seeds and cloves. The aroma produced when cooking with five-spice, which is mildly pungent yet at the same time pleasing due to the cinnamon component, is enough to make anyone do an about-face.
The exact origin of five-spice powder in Chinese cooking is a bit obscure.However, one romantic notion suggests that its creators were attempting to produce a “wonder powder”to encompass all of the five flavours—sour, bitter, sweet, pungent, and salty. On the other hand, the combination of spices may have been accidentally stumbled upon to add flavour to the blandest dish of rice. In other words, “a little of this and a little of that” led to “hey, that tastes pretty good!”
Five-spice is becoming popular and you should
be able to find it in most grocery stores—I found it in the local grocer in out-of-the-way Wawa, Ontario. You will definitely be able to find it at a Chinese grocer in any large city centre, and while you’re there, pick up some dried Chinese mushrooms to add a distinctive flavor to your meal. If you can't find five-spice you can try making some yourself by mixing equal amounts of regular peppercorns, cin- namon, cloves and fennel seeds (star anise is hard to find). For this meal you can use tofu, chicken or beef. I
suggest that if you use meat that you precook it, freeze it and seal it in an airtight
container.This meal is ideally served on a bed of fragrant basmati rice. Enjoy,and may the surf landing you perform coming in for this dinner be a sweet one—as opposed to the other four possibilities.
16 Spring 2003
photo Tarmo Poldmaa
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