Types of spices. Spicy Vegetables

Spices   - classification, characterization, use
Spices - product various parts of plants.

Due to their specific stable aromas (smell) and different degrees of stiffness, the spices are able to convey any of their properties to any dish, and thereby change its taste in the direction that is desirable for us.
  Spices due to their properties are able to increase the preservation (preservation) of food products, as well as promote the best digestion of their human body, thereby stimulating the digestive process.
  Our not knowledge andnot the ability to navigate the assortment of spices, led to the fact that in practice we apply only a dozen types of spices.
  Today we will get acquainted with the classification of spices, distribute them by species, groups and consider their proper use in nutrition.
  All spices are divided into two large groups:
  I. Classic, or exotic, spices.
  This group includes spices, which are known since ancient times, have received worldwide distributionand as a result became classical for the majority of national cuisines.
  By the nature of the application of classical spices are very diverse due to its flavor, regardless of which part of the plant it is contained.
  ABOUT a good sign for classical spices is that they are all used in cookingin pre-processed and mandatory in dry form,which largely determines their worldwide distribution, since in the dry form the aromaticity of these spices either appears or rises and reaches a maximum, and, moreover, it is in the dry form of the spice of this group that it is possible to preserve and transport for a long time long distances.

So, the classic spices are tropical and subtropical plants parts of which (fruits, bark, leaves, roots, etc.) ,after   preliminary processing (drying) are used in cooking in small quantities.
  Classic spices have a strong, pronounced, stable fragrance and scintillating, the degree of which for each spice is different.


  Badian ( star anise, Chinese anise, Indian anise, Siberian anise, ship anise)

Appearance - fruits are fetuses consisting usually of 8, and sometimes of 7, 9, 10 and 12 fruit, connected together in the form of a multi-asterisk. Each fruit, or denticle, has the shape of a boat of dark brown color, rigid, woody to the touch. In the ground form, the tubby is a coarse-grained powder from yellow-brown to reddish-burgundy.
Taste   - sweetish bitter.
Smell   - reminiscent of anise, but much more fragrant, thinner and more complex.
Application   - an indispensable component when baking gingerbread and gingerbread, cookies. Possible application in the preparation of sweet dishes and products: compotes, mousses, kissels, jams, puddings, curd pastes. In rare cases, the tubby is used for cooking meat and poultry.
Using   - in sweet dishes, crumbs are laid for 5-10 minutes until cooked, into a boiling liquid, then the dish should be closed with a lid and be sure to let the buckyon brew.
Norm of the bookmark   - in liquid sweet dishes (compotes, kissels) - 1 or 2 cloves or 1/4 teaspoon of powder per 1.5 liters. AT meat dishes   the norm is twice, sometimes three times higher than for sweet, and reaches 1 gram per serving.

Vanilla

Appearance   - fruits (pods) of a climbing plant (lianas) of the family of orchids. There are two types of vanilla:
1. Vanilla planifolia - length of the pod reaches from 20 to 25 cm, high quality vanilla.
2.Vanilla rothropa- short pods, vanilla of lower quality.
  Ready pods (sticks) of vanilla, usually a length of 10 to 20 centimeters, should be soft, elastic, slightly twisted, oily to the touch.
Colour   from dark brown to black-brown.
Smell   - persistent, there are cases when the vanilla fruit completely preserved its aroma (if properly stored) 36 years after manufacturing.
Application   - Confectionery and sweet dishes, as well as for the preparation of liqueurs. Rarely used for making sweet dishes (compotes, jellies, mousses, soufflé, puddings, curd pastes)
Using   - Vanilla is introduced into the product either immediately before the heat treatment (in dough), or (more often) immediately after it, in the still not cooled dish (in puddings, soufflé, compotes, jam, etc.), and in cold dishes (for example , curd pastes) - after their preparation. Biscuits, cakes are impregnated with vanilla syrup after baking.
Norm of the bookmark   - a piece of vanilla sticks are well rubbed in a porcelain mortar with sugar powder, gradually adding sugar until all the vanilla is rubbed off, and then this vanilla sugar   interpose in a cream, paste or sprinkle them with a finished product (dish)
The laying rates are small: from 1/20 of a stick and more per serving or 1/4 sticks per kilogram of products enclosed in the dough.
  For preparation vanilla sugar one vanilla stick is enough for 0.5 kg of sugar.

Carnation.

Appearance   - dried not opened flower bud (bud) of the Myrtle family tree.
Taste   - burning.
Smell   - Strong fragrance.
Application   - cooking marinades (mushroom, fruit and berry, meat, vegetable, less fish), and is a part of a variety of spice mixtures used in confectionery, fish canning and sausage production.
Using   - separately or in combination with cinnamon cloves are used in sweet dishes - compotes, puddings, confectionery, in combination with black pepper - in the preparation of fried or stewed meat, lamb, pork and meat fatty stuffs, meat strong broths, and sauces served to poultry (chickens, turkeys). For confectionery and sweet dishes, where it is necessary to avoid bitterness, it is better to use heads (hats) of a carnation, and for meat dishes and marinades - petioles.
  They are put in different dishes at different times:
  In marinades - during their preparation together with other components.
  In dough and minced - before heat treatment.
  In meat dishes - for 10-15 minutes until ready.
  In broths, soups, compotes - for 3-5 minutes until ready.
Norms of the bookmark   - The highest rates of carnation in marinades:
  In mushroom - 1-2 grams per 10 kilograms of mushrooms.
  In fruit and berry and vegetable - 3-4 grams per 10 liters of pouring.
  In the dough, you can lay about 4-5 kidney cloves per 1 kilogram of enclosed products in the presence of other spices, in which the carnation can be from 1/5 to 1/7 of a piece. Curd pastes require an even smaller dose - 2-3 ground clove buds or 4-5 hats per 1 kg of cottage cheese.
  In compotes, soups, broths, it is enough to put 1 kidney per 2-2.5 glasses of liquid, at least not more than 3 kidneys per 1 liter.
  When cooking meat, it is permissible to use 2 buds per serving, and when using roast cloves are used in the ground form, and when extinguishing - in general. If other spices are also used, the norm of the clove is reduced by half.
  II. SPICES.

Ginger

Appearance - roundish, but as it were flat, squeezed, finger-shaped pieces resembling various figures.
Colour   - from dirty white to grayish color. There is black ginger. White is a pre-washed ginger, peeled from a superficial denser layer, and then dried in the sun.
Black - unpurified, not scalded with boiling water and dried in the sun.
  The smell - black ginger has a stronger smell and more burning taste.
  In the ground form, ginger is a mealy, greyish-yellowish powder.
Application   - in Russian cuisine - in sbiten, kvass, liqueurs, tinctures, bergs, honey, as well as in gingerbread, cakes, buns.
  Widely used in confectionery products (lollipops, jam, cookies, muffins, biscuits), in sweet dishes (compotes, puddings).
  In Asian countries, ginger is used in condoms made from meat and poultry.
  In Southeast Asia, ginger, used as an independent product: fresh ginger candied or made from it jam.
  In China, Indochina, Burma and England, jam ginger with orange peel is also popular.
  In India, four varieties of "ginger flour" are produced, differing in the percentage of ginger.
Norm of the bookmark   - in the dough is introduced either during the batching process, or at the end of it.
  When extinguishing meat - 20 minutes before cooked.
  In compotes, jelly, mousses, puddings and other sweet dishes - for 2-5 minutes until ready.
  In sauces - after the end of heat treatment.
  The norms of laying ginger are relatively high - up to 1 gram per 1 kilogram of dough or meat.

Cardamom

Appearance - The herbaceous perennial plant of the ginger family uses fruits (seeds), encapsulated in capsules. They are removed slightly immature, dried in the sun, moistened with water and dried again. It turns out white trihedral capsules 0.8 to 1.5 centimeters long in Malabar cardamom, and up to 4 centimeters in Ceylon. Inside the capsule there are three nests, each with 3-4 dark seeds. These seeds are also spicery.
Smell   - sharp, spicy-burning, slightly camphor.
Application   - aromatization of flour confectionery products (cakes, pastries, gingerbread, gingerbread, in rolls, puff pastry   and in products with the addition of coffee). It is widely used in fish soups, in spicy broths for fish, for flavoring fish minced meat, fillings.
Using   - use cardamom should be extremely cautious, because it is a strong spice.
Norm of the bookmark   - One capsule is enough for 1 kilogram of dough or minced meat. Pre-cardamom must be crushed.
  For sweet dishes (compotes, kissels), half or a third of the capsule is sufficient for 1 liter of liquid, and in this case, as in soups, cardamom in the form of grains is brought in 5 minutes before ready, and in the ground form - just before the end of the heat treatment , literally in a few seconds.
Cinnamon.
A bark of several species of cinnamon trees of the laurel family, used as a spice in dried form. The following four species are best known.
Ceylon cinnamon
Chinese cinnamon
Malabar cinnamon
Cinnamon, or spicy cinnamon
  Different kinds of cinnamon are used mainly in confectionery production (in cookies, muffins, cakes, gingerbreads, sweet pies with fruit filling), and in cooking - when preparing sweet dishes (puddings, sweet plov, compotes, jams, mousses, jellies, kissels, curd pastes).
  In modern Western European cuisine, cinnamon is widely used in various types fruit salads   and in some vegetables (spinach, red cabbage, corn of milky wax ripeness, carrots), as well as in cold fruit soups made from fresh and dried fruits. Cinnamon is especially well combined with those dishes, which include apples, quince, pears.
  In eastern cuisine, including in the Transcaucasian and Central Asian cinnamon, cinnamon is used in the preparation of cold and hot dishes from poultry (turkey, chicken) and second dishes from mutton (fried, stewed), and in China and Korea - in the preparation of roast pork . Cinnamon improves, ennobles the taste of fatty meat.
  Finally, cinnamon is an obligatory component of various mixtures of dry spices and mixtures for fruit, mushroom and meat marinades.
  Cinnamon is consumed either in its entirety (liquid dishes), or more often - in the hammer (especially in dough, second dishes). A bookmark is made 7-10 minutes before the dish is ready (soups, compotes, hot dishes) or immediately before serving (salads, curd pastes, curdled milk).
Cinnamon laying rates vary greatly. Especially they are high in eastern, Indian and Chinese cuisine; on the average - from 0,5 to 1 teaspoon per 1 kilogram of rice, cottage cheese, meat, dough or 1 liter of liquid.

Turmeric

Appearance
As spices are used mainly lateral, long roots of turmeric. Finished roots are hard, glisten on the cut, very dense, drown in the water. Usually turmeric is not found by roots, but in powder, similar to the thinnest powder.
Taste   - Slightly burning, slightly bitter, reminiscent of ginger.
Smell   - Slim, peculiar, pleasant, sometimes slightly palpable.
Colour   - Brightly golden yellow or lemon-yellow.
Application   - turmeric is used as a seasoning for food, and as a food color. In England, it is traditionally added to all meat and egg dishes and sauces. In the European countries turmeric
It is used in confectionery production and mainly as a food color for the coloring of liqueurs, marinades, butter and cheese, and also for the production of mustard.
Using   - used to color a food product, for example rice, is introduced into food in extremely small quantities: in pilaf either immediately before laying rice, when the rice is already ready, or 3-5 minutes before it is ready.
Norm of the bookmark   - on the tip of the knife for 1 kilogram of rice. Make turmeric when the water is almost completely boiled.
  If the turmeric is added to thicken the meat gravy, then the dose is sharply increased, up to 0.5 teaspoon per prepared dish.

Laurus

Appearance - as the spice is used leaves laurel (bay leaf) in fresh or more often in dried form.
  And also the fruits (seeds) of laurel and laurel powder, which is a concentrated extract of essential oils of laurel and obtained by industrial means.
Colour   - in a dry state, even light olive, after cooking becomes dark green.
Application   - for aromatization of soups, for the second dishes from meat, fish, vegetables, seafood, for sauces, mushroom marinades.
Using   - in the first dishes, the bay leaves are placed for 5 minutes before the readiness, in the second - for 10 minutes. In sauces, the powder is introduced after they are ready, when they cool down to at least 40 ° C.
Norm of the bookmark   - 3-4 sheets per dish, but you should remember that you can not hold the bay leaf in a dish, but it should be taken out of the dish before serving, so that it does not give bitterness.

Nutmeg.

Appearance   - the core is irregularly ovoid in shape (2-3 cm in length and 1.5-2 cm in diameter).
Colour   - gray-brown, worn with a light beige mesh. At one pole of the nut - a bright spot, on the other - worse visible - dark brown, sometimes even black.

Smell   - Strong and refined.
Taste   - Spicy-hot.
Application   - most often in sweet dishes (jams, compotes, mousses, puddings, curd pastes) and confectionery products from dough (pretzels, muffins, cakes, biscuits, cookies, sweet pies).
  In Western European cuisine nutmeg is used to flavor vegetables - in salads and mashed potatoes, in dishes from all kinds of poultry, in pasta, in dishes from small greasy game, in fish dishes.
Using   - the nutmeg is rubbed on a grater or chopped with a knife and introduced into dishes during cooking. In flour culinary products we add during the batch dough.
Norm of the bookmark   - in the first dishes and sauces 2gram per liter, in second courses and flour products 0.1 grams per serving.
  In the article, we examined two main categories of spices.
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Each national kitchen has its own set spices, spices   and seasonings. In each culinary recipe   Spices and spices have become an integral part. Proper use of various spices and sometimes represents a real art. Here you need to have developed intuition, delicate taste and many years of experience. Spices and spices should be applied so that they do not distort the taste of the dish, but, on the contrary, fully emphasize its specific taste. In addition, many spices not only add flavor and taste to the dish, but also contribute to good digestibility of food.

Each housewife has in her kitchen arsenal not one kind of spices and spices. But not everyone can say what is correct to consider a spice, and what is spicy.

  Spices -substance, changing the taste or consistency of dishes, has no expressed aroma. Some spices only change the taste of food. These are such as salt, sugar, pepper, mustard, vinegar and others. Yeast, soda, gelling agents - change the consistency of the dish.

Spices    give the food a certain flavor and some taste. To spices are substances of vegetable origin. Add spices in the dish in a small amount. Spicy aromatic plants are known to people since ancient times. Spices give food not only a certain flavor, but also enriched with vitamins, mineral salts and many other useful substances for the body. Spicy plants, creating a flavorful and flavorful harmony of the prepared dish, enhance appetite, improve metabolism, have a positive effect on the digestive system. In quality can be used flowers, leaves, rhizomes and the whole plant as a whole. The most common and famous spices are dill, parsley, celery, onions, garlic, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and others. Sometimes spices and spices are called one common name of seasoning. This is fundamentally not true. Seasonings are prepared as separate meals and that complement the main course. The most common condiments are mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard.

Storage of spices and spices

How to properly store spices and spices to preserve all their taste?

Most spices, especially milled ones, are exposed to light and oxygen of the air. If stored incorrectly, they quickly lose their flavor and become lethargic and tasteless.

Spices are best kept in tightly closed jars that do not allow light. Metal jars or boxes are not suitable for storing spices.

If several different spices are stored nearby, then not only do they not lose their aroma, but they also perceive each other's aroma.

The aroma of spices persists for a limited time, it is usually indicated on the package.

Ground spices lose their flavor much faster than uncrushed. For example, pea peppers can be used indefinitely for a long time.

To test the suitability of spices or herbs, you need to sniff them. If the fragrance is still felt, then such a spice is still usable.

Do not sprinkle with spices or spicy food on the stove from the container in which they are stored. The steam entering the container will ruin the aroma and taste of the spices. You can not also take seasonings and spices with a wet spoon or hands.

Immediately after use, the container with seasoning or spice should be tightly closed.

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What are spices and spices and what are they for, how to use spices and spices correctly, how to add them to recipes, contraindications and harm, read in this article.

What are spices and what are they for?

From this article you will learn:

Mankind has long tried to diversify the taste and aroma of its gastronomic delights with the help of various plants.

It is impossible to master culinary mastery perfectly and to understand what spices are without in-depth study of the wonderful and diverse world of fragrant assistants.

Spices - from ancient times this term was understood to be dried parts of spicy-aromatic representatives of the flora, used to impart and emphasize the taste of various dishes.

Each country is distinguished by its originality, color and traditional fragrant herbs. This is due, first of all, to the climate necessary for the growth of plants, as well as the traditions of the Aboriginal peoples.

Useful properties of spices

Spicy parts of plants are used not only to give the dishes an amazing flavor and pleasant flavor - as a rule, they have a huge range useful properties.

Each plant is beneficial for the treatment and prevention of its range of diseases.

However, there are a number of useful characteristics that all spices possess:

• elimination of toxins and harmful substances from the body
• lower the level of glucose and bad cholesterol
• activate the body's defenses
• improve metabolic processes
• normalize weight and hormonal background

Very often they have antiviral and antibacterial properties, can be used in the fight against insects and domestic pests.

The most famous spices and their characteristics

The number of flora that are used to flavor food and drinks is immense, however, in the daily diet of most people there are not so many:

• Black pepper

Known all over the world, it is used as a whole kind, and in crushed. The sphere of culinary use of black pepper is extremely wide, ranging from soups to sweet dishes and drinks.

Only after inhaling its aroma, it is possible to fully understand what spices are.

• Chilli

Spicy red pepper has a bright, burning and inexpressible taste, and practically does not have aromatic properties. With its help you can cook a variety of fish, as well as soups and snacks.

In rare cases, chili is used for various types of sweet delicacies and drinks.

• Cinnamon

The aroma and flavor of this plant is difficult to confuse with something else. Associated, in the first place, with sweet pastries and drinks, but the range of application of spices is very wide.

You can add in cereals, sauces, milk soups, etc. As a medicinal plant can be used in the fight against diseases of the liver, kidneys, gall bladder.

• Bay leaf

A noble plant that is used in a variety of recipes.

Due to its versatility and very pleasant aroma, - a regular in all the cuisines of the world.

Since ancient times, they have treated various skin diseases, normalize the water-salt balance of the body.

• Carnation

Carnation is an undisclosed bud of the clove tree of the Myrtle family. Spice has a rich, very peculiar smell and taste, is indispensable in various pickles and marinades.

Spice positively affects the nervous system, its essential oil helps relieve fatigue.

• Ginger

As a spice is used only the root of the plant, its burning taste and pleasant aroma imparts to the dishes subtle, specific notes.

It goes well with meat, fish, it is often added to various drinks and desserts.

In addition to outstanding gastronomic merits, it differs breadth of application in folk medicine: it helps to combat infertility and excess weight, strengthens immunity, stimulates brain work, tones up.

• Cardamom

The fragrance of this seasoning resembles a lemon.

A pleasant burning of cardamom is perfectly combined with many culinary masterpieces. In India it is difficult to imagine any dish without his participation.

For different culinary delicacies, you can take fresh herbs and plant seeds in fresh or dried form.

The green healer copes well with stomach disorders, coughs and relieves swelling.

Contraindications to the use of spices and spices

There is a certain range of individuals who need to consume scented herbs with caution.

Abandon the consumption of excessively sharp and spicy dishes should people suffering from any diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, as well as kidneys.

Contraindicated spices and with a tendency to allergies (due to the possibility of individual intolerance)

Strictly dose intake to pregnant women, children and people of advanced age.

Storage and how to choose the spices correctly?

Each vegetable flavoring seasoning has its own specificity of choice and storage, but there are several rules that can be generalized for the whole range of seasonings.

All spices are imported from distant countries and can not be cheap.

When buying is better to focus on products that have an average price category and good quality. Otherwise, there is a risk to buy an unknown substance, filled with preservatives and additives, and not realizing what spices are.

Seasonings are more correct to take as a whole, but not crushed form (pepper - peas, cinnamon - chopsticks). At any necessary time they can be thinned out with a mortar, a special mill or a coffee grinder.

Store spicy herbs and other types of spices in tightly closed, preferably dark glass containers, in order to preserve all the flavoring and aromatic properties of seasonings.

Try these organic spices and spices !!!

If you ask the question: "What is spices and spices? "- you can hear the most diverse answers.

Spices change the taste of a familiar dish and set a decisive point in creating its flavor. But all of them will be connected with food in one way or another. Those who argue that spices have exhausted their possibilities are not right, that they began to be forgotten.

Spicy-aromatic plants   known to people from ancient times, as evidenced by the history of their discovery, use and dissemination. Having connected them with food, a person constantly improves his knowledge about the properties and possibilities of spices. There is a constant process of creating new food products, improving the culinary arts, and at the same time spices have a significant role.

The world of spices is many-sided. Some spicy herbs grow only in countries with a hot tropical climate, others are less whimsical and grow in different climatic conditions, sometimes reaching northern latitudes. Individuals learned how to grow as a crop. With the development of gardening and horticulture, it became possible to grow many spicy herbs in suburban areas. And, finally, some plant them on balconies, in flower pots on the windowsills, combining a hobby with a useful thing.

Acquaintance with spices is an exciting activity, as each of them has its own history of origin, features of cultivation, processing, use in food.

About spices a person knows a lot, but in the special literature, we do not even find an exact definition of what is meant by the word "spice". What is the difference between spices and spices? Can spices be called seasonings, aromatic substances?
  V. Dah treats "spicy" as "hot, smelling, pleasant to the taste." As spices are used horseradish roots, radish, onion, parsley, celery, parsnips, calamus; from imported - pepper, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg. "Spice" - in his opinion - property, the quality of spicy. He emphasizes that the "spicy" taste differs from "fresh and sugary."

In Russian, according to many, the word "spice" came from the word "pepper", which V. Dal calls "spicy, burning taste." Then the word "gingerbread" arose, as pepper and other spices were put in gingerbread.

In other countries spices were given names depending on the specific properties of the herbs (taste, aroma), attitude to the genus, etc. In the later Latin the word "species" occurs, which translates as "brilliant, beautiful, prominent, special" . From it went the word "spices", which in a number of European countries called spices. In Russia, spices are a number of products of various origins, including non-vegetative (salt, soda, vinegar, starch, etc.), through which the raw product turns into a dish with a certain taste and consistency. Spices - products of vegetable origin, have a completely different purpose. And the confusion in these words is due to the fact that culinary specialists call spices some very often used and most famous classical spices (red and black pepper, cloves, cinnamon, bay leaves).

Seasonings from spices differ in that they are more complex food additives, which consist of several ingredients, including spices, and impart a certain taste to the finished product (salty, bitter, etc.).

Aromatic substances are used to enhance the aroma, they are usually of natural origin (essential oil, infusions, juices, etc.).

Spicy plants attracted to themselves from ancient times. Many botanists, physicians, experts in the field of theory and practice of culinary arts, just enthusiastic people gave years to their study. But the variety of spices is so great that to this day there is no clear classification that would help them to be guided by them. In one opinion, all experts agree, namely: to spices are only products of plant origin.

To date, in our opinion, it is most convenient to use the classification proposed by V. V. Pokhlebkin. Among connoisseurs of culinary arts, it is considered the most successful and popular. According to her, all spices are divided into two groups: classical and local.
  To classical, or exotic, he refers spices, known from ancient times, widely spread and accepted for the vast majority of national cuisines, both Western and Eastern.

Local spices have a much smaller range of application and are mostly used fresh in places where they grow wild or grow. They are divided into spicy herbs and spicy vegetables, the latter are mostly cultivated plants.

We would like to note that another amazing product of nature deserves attention, which can be used as a spice. These are mushrooms. Fresh and dried mushrooms   some species have a characteristic taste, aroma and serve as a useful additive to human food.
  Spices since their discovery occupy a special place in the history of nutrition. The man pursued at first simple goals - to repel an unpleasant smell and specific taste of the original product, to diversify the food.

In countries with hot climates, where fish, - meat   quickly spoiled, spicy herbs used also as preservatives, as many of them are able to prevent spoilage of food
  Western Europe, too, experienced a period of "spicy madness," which peaked in the 12th century, and even the first cookbooks, containing recommendations for the use of spices, were added to soups, jam, and expensive drinks.

With the help of spices, they not only improved the taste of the dish, but also its external appearance, changing, for example, color. The culture of spice consumption grew. Gradually, the secrets were revealed, when it is better to add them to get a special flavor. The most accessible were thyme, marjoram, bay leaves, thyme, anise, coriander and especially garlic. (The famous French doctor of the thirteenth century Arno de Villeneuve called the latter "peasant anesthetizing.") The Dutch, the main spice merchants in the 17th century, noted that most of all during this period they were absorbed by the "cold countries - Russia and Poland".

In Russia, spicy herbs were known from ancient times and used dill, borshevsnik, mint, horseradish, onions, garlic, anise. In the XV-XVI centuries, they learned parsley, black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, saffron, cardamom. Russian cuisine of those times was acute and fragrant. Spices were added to soups, meat, vegetable, fish dishes, gravies, gingerbread and in drinks: teas, honey, kvass, sbittni, fruit drinks.

Iskonna Russian tea in general was prepared from mint, St. John's wort, hips, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, bones, cloudberries. He did not yield to the taste of tea as such, which appeared in Russia only in the XVII century.

Up until the end of the 19th century, sbiten enjoyed great popularity among Russians. It was prepared from natural raw materials and spicy-aromatic herbs (no less than five kinds), composing various combinations of them depending on the desired taste. The main ones were ginger, cardamom, bay leaf, nutmeg, oregano.

In kvas, besides natural raw materials, mint, black currant, horseradish, ground cinnamon, etc. were also added. Hops and cardamom were used more often in honey.
  Russian cuisine of the XIX century, generously flavored already with celery, cilantro, chervil, cucumber grass, portolac, tarragon, chicory, rosemary, lavender, sage, marjoram, chabra and other spices.

There are no such periods in history when spices disappeared from use. One can note only the times of "excessive" fascination with them and the moments of recession, which are explained by historical patterns. So, coffee, chocolate, alcohol, tobacco for a period constituted a competition for spices.

Acquaintance with new vegetable cultures - artichoke, salad, beans, asparagus, cauliflower, tomatoes, melons - also temporarily reduced interest in spices, until the ways of using them in vegetable dishes were mastered.

An unending interest in spices is also observed at the present time. Even in small doses, they can greatly affect the taste and color of the dish. For example, a very strong dye is saffron. The most insignificant quantity of it gives the dish a golden color and a wonderful aroma. Two stigmas of this spice is enough to make 3 liters of water acquired saffron color. The turmeric has a strong tinting effect, which has been tinted for a long time with rice and sweet dishes in Eastern countries, mayonnaises, pates, cream sauces in England, the USA.

Spices   can tell the product a whole new flavor. A small amount of lemon balm, for example, softens and improves the taste of herbal teas, it is even added to milk to make it smell better. But it is important to remember that the taste of a dish does not depend on the amount of spice added, but on the skill, its use, otherwise it can also damage the product. So, when adding spices to salads, mayonnaises, cold sauces, they are recommended to put an hour before serving, so that the essential oils contained in them can evenly dissolve in the juice, the fat emulsion of the main product. When cooking, stewing, frying spices, it is best to put it shortly before the end of the process, and sometimes into a ready-made dish so that the aroma does not evaporate with the steam.

Many spices have the ability to influence the state of the product, making the meat, for example, more tender, the cucumber harder (crispy), etc.
  Spices are widely used as excellent preservatives. Badjan, say, improves the flavor of jam and does not allow it to be candied. Ruta fragrant, mustard kill mold, fungal formations.

Spicy plants   enrich food with vitamins, mineral salts and other useful substances.

Spices   ennoble the product, determine the taste and aromatic harmony of the prepared dish. Effects on taste buds have a positive effect on. digestive system, enhance appetite, improve metabolism, contribute to the creation of a good mood.As spices, various parts of plants can act: roots, rhizomes, tubers, bulbs, young leaves, inflorescences, buds, stigmas, green feather.

What are spices? The answer to this question is not so simple.

Not only in everyday life, but also in cooking, and even in the scientific literature, spices, spices, seasonings and simply fragrant substances used for the aromatization of certain food products are confused. Meanwhile, each of these terms refers only to one particular group of substances endowed with completely different properties from other groups. Spices are a product of purely vegetable origin. Moreover, plants that give spices belong to more than 30 different botanical families.

However, all the spices are united primarily by the role they play in cooking, and this is their true value.
  Unfortunately, the issue of spices has been little developed. Hence, in the culinary practice, there is a confusion between spices, seasonings and flavors, which leads both to the restriction of the use of spices, and partly to their incorrect application.

For many millennia, spices, faithfully serve a person. They not only improve our food, but also take a worthy place in the arsenal of medicines.
  But in order to use spices properly, with knowledge and use, you need to know their essence and properties well.
  To find out what properties spices possess, let us first turn to the names given to them by different peoples. Often the names themselves contain characteristics of spices.

In ancient Greece, spices were called aromatico, which meant "fragrant, aromatic herbs." In ancient Rome, spices were called salsu-caustic, sharp, tasty. The same meaning has the Latin word scitamente - the name of a family of spicy plants. It means "a delicious, selective, delicious food." This applied to spicy plants of the tropics - cardamom, ginger, galangta, etc.

In medieval, late Latin, we find the word species - something inspiring respect, prominent from itself, brilliant and beautiful. This name is not associated with the properties of spices, but rather with the high evaluation that they received in the Middle Ages in Europe.

In most countries of Western and Southern Europe, the national, local names of spices have come from this medieval Latin notation, but in modern languages ​​the meaning of this word is somewhat different: for example, the Italians spezie - special, special, individual; the French epice - sharp, spicy, the English spices - sharp; the Dutch specezig-special, rare. Thus, in Western and Southern Europe, the modern names of spices mark all of their properties, which collectively marked the Latin names, that is, on the one hand, the spear, the spiciness of spices, and on the other - their rarity, feature, originality. At the same time, the meaning of "tasty, selective" disappeared.

The spices in the countries of Central, Northern and Eastern Europe are somewhat different: they are delicious, giving taste, in Germanic, Slavic and Finno-Ugric languages. In German spices are called Gewiirz, which means "roots". The same means Czech koreni, Polish korzenny, Latvian virzes, Estonian virts. But in Estonia there is another name for spices - maitseained, that is, delicious, giving a taste.
  The same meaning has the Lithuanian word prieskonis or Latvian sivs (delicious). In these cases, the quality of spices is noted.
  And in Scandinavian languages, spices are called kryddor, which means "powdered, powdery".
  Thus, in the Germanic and Slavic names of spices, the spices, roots, roots of plants or powder, dried and erased into powder are characteristic of spices in the first place, and in the more ancient languages ​​of Eastern Europe the names of the spices retained and the indication of their characteristic food characteristics - aroma, aftertaste.

In Russian, the word "spicy", as evidenced by Dahl, means "sharp, fragrant, pleasant to the taste", in contrast to "fresh" and "sugary". The very word "spice" (and "spicy") occurs in the Russian language from the word "pepper" - the first spice that has become known to the Russian (spicy-peppery, that is, peppery). From here comes the word "gingerbread" - filled with spices: 7-8 kinds of spices were put in gingerbread dough.

Are all these estimates of spice contradictory? Of course not. The fact is that each people noted for themselves those properties or qualities of spices that seemed more interesting to him, which often depended on specific historical conditions, on the spices he used. Almost all the people note the spice characteristic for spices and the varying degree of stinging ("sharpness", as it is sometimes called sometimes incorrectly). As for the taste, it is not a property of the spices themselves, but arises only in combination with the main food. That is why the peoples of the East, where there is an ancient culture of consumption of spices, never confuse the taste with the burning sensation inherent in spices, unlike seasonings and aromatic substances.

Seasonings give food only a certain taste - salty, sour, sweet, bitter and their combinations-acid-sweet, bitter-salty, etc. Aromatic substances are able to give food only aroma, such as rose, cocoa, ylang-ylang, jasmine. The spices inform the fragrance in combination with a characteristic aftertaste that is noticeable only in food and especially when heated. This combination creates a peculiar not so much fragrant, as a stuffy, dense scent, which we call spicy and which in most cases is accompanied by a slight burning sensation.

What else distinguishes spices from seasonings and other substances with which food is cured, and what is the essence of spices?
  So far we have spoken of properties that are determined organoleptically, that is, about differences, to a certain extent fixed subjectively by our senses. However, there are also objective signs that distinguish spices from seasonings and aromatic substances.

First, spices are not used in significant amounts, like seasonings (for example, barberry, plum, quince, garnet), and they can not serve as independent dishes, as, for example, tomato paste   or bulgarian pepper, which you can eat with bread. Spices are used only as additives necessary for giving food a certain accent (sometimes decisive). Their use can be compared with small additions of rare metals to steel, resulting in various alloyed steels with different properties. Attempts to increase the dose (amount) of spices, in other words, go beyond the permissible limits, lead to a sharp change in their qualitative effect on food, to the appearance of a pleasant, desirable aroma-a sharp, unpleasant bitterness.
This feature of spices determines their place in cooking, unlike seasonings and flavorings, spices can be used only during cooking and in extremely small doses.

In addition, spices have the ability to suppress bacteria (bactericidal), mainly rotting bacteria, and thus contribute to a longer preservation of food (canning). At the same time, the vast majority of spices have the ability to activate the withdrawal of various kinds of slags from the body, cleanse it of mechanical and biological clogging, and also serve as catalysts in a number of enzymatic processes. Therefore, most spices are used and especially in the past have been used in medicine as medicinal substances. In these cases, their concentration increases and the duration of use increases compared with the use in cooking.

To the above, we can add that the use of spices together with food acts on the physiological and psychological mood of our body, promotes more complete digestion of food, stimulates the purifying, metabolic and protective functions of the body.

So, we should not mix spices with seasonings and with such additives to food that cause a change in its taste, for example salt, sugar, vinegar (in our culinary practice they are usually referred to as spices.) We should not equate spices with flavors that do not have bactericidal and other special properties and the range of application of which is more limited (mainly sweet dishes).
  On the basis of all of the above, let's try to answer the question what spices are.

Spices   - a variety of plant parts, each with a specific stable aroma (odor), varying degrees of stinging and, in part, flavor.

Being used in very small doses (as additives to food), they are able to give any food product these properties and thereby change its taste in the direction we want, and increase the preservation (preservation) of food products and promote the best absorption by our body , stimulating not only the digestive process, but also other functions of the body.

Spice search history

Apparently, spices were introduced by man into food much earlier than salt, because they were a more accessible (vegetable) material. It must be said that at first the use of spices was associated exclusively with food, then some of them found application in religious and other rituals, in incense burning, as well as embalming the dead and, finally, in medicine.

In the ancient civilizations of the East - in China, India, Egypt - the first mention of spices are found about five thousand years ago. Air, for example, was known in Egypt in 3000 BC. e., and cinnamon is described in China in 2700 BC. e.
  In Assyria and Babylon, in ancient Egypt and Phenicia, we find not only a diverse application of spices, but also an extremely high level of consumption.
  In ancient times, spices came to Egypt, Greece and Rome, mainly from India and from Ceylon. Spices of local origin - from Asia Minor and the Mediterranean - also found partial application.
  The ancient Greeks and especially the Romans knew most of the exotic spices that we now know and, moreover, some completely out of use now, like the backgammon and the bone. From South Asia they received black pepper, pipule, kubebe, cinnamon, cinnamon and cassia, cloves, ginger, from the Middle East - asafetida, from Africa - myrrh and amomum, from Asia Minor - saffron, from the Mediterranean - bay leaf and libanotis (hyssop ).
  Caravans with spices, moving from the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea through Arabia, as well as the Tigris and the Euphrates, flocked to the Phoenician city of Tire - on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, from here they were taken to all other Mediterranean cities by sea.
  After in 332 BC. e. Tire was captured by the armies of Alexander of Macedon, the center of the spice trade moved to Carthage, and then, in the middle of the 2nd century BC. e., to Alexandria, where it remained until the Romans established their dominance throughout the Mediterranean.
  The acquisition of spices in ancient Rome was one of the most important items of expenditure, for they were highly valued. The Roman historian Pliny complained that annually up to 50 million sesterces (about 4 million rubles in gold) are spent on exotic aromatic drugs and that these goods are sold in the Empire markets 100 times more than the original cost.
However, despite this, none of the Roman merchants dared to independently go to distant lands for spices, and intermediary trade profitable for eastern merchants continued to flourish until the decline of the Roman Empire.
  Nevertheless, even through intermediary trade slave-holding Rome for several centuries has accumulated from all over the world not only treasures in the form of gold, silver and precious stones, but also countless amounts of spices from Asia and Africa at that time. It is interesting that when the hordes of barbarians of the Visigothic king Alaric I fell in Rome in 408, they demanded not only 5000 pounds of gold, but 3000 pounds of pepper as a tribute, as an even greater jewel!
  During the early Middle Ages, immediately after the collapse of the Roman Empire, when the craft and agriculture of Europe fell into decay, the European countries had nothing to offer in exchange for expensive goods of oriental merchants, and the spice trade temporarily died out. Later it resumed, but already in the new states formed in the Eastern Mediterranean.
  Monopoly in trade with the East was Byzantium, and its capital, Constantinople, challenged Alexandria as the world center for the trade in spices.
  Spices were brought to Byzantium by Arab merchants, who dominated the East and the Mediterranean from the 7th century, when the Muslim states occupied a vast space from India to Spain. The Arabs, who were skilled traders, willingly entered into contact with Europeans, offering a large set of spices. The place where the Arabs were directly in contact with the Europeans was the Iberian Peninsula. Therefore, part of the spices from the Arabs fell into the then Europe through the Spaniards. But not all spices Spaniards acquired from the Arabs through peaceful trade. Some of them they simply won with weapons.
  Already in the Xth century, the Spaniards, displacing the Arabs from the territory of modern Catalonia and Murcia, borrowed from them the culture of one of the most valuable spices - saffron and since then began to breed it on their own.
  Similarly, in the tenth century, Arabs brought from India to the Mediterranean a culture of orange, a peel of which since then began to be used as a spice.
In the middle of the 11th century, the Seljuk Turks attacked the Arab civilization. They became the first masters of Asia Minor, and in 1055 they captured Baghdad, the largest center of Arab culture and trade, and defeated the Byzantine army. Well-established trade of the East with Byzantium and Europe was completely broken.
  Alarmed by the expansion of Turkish power in the Mediterranean, the states of Catholic Europe undertook the first crusade in 1096. Returning from the countries of the Middle East, the Crusaders brought with them to Europe not only the stolen jewels, oriental fabrics, but also spices, which are valued no less. Among them were peppers and cinnamon, known from ancient times, and some new spices, for example nutmeg and muscat color, which appeared in Europe only in the XII century and were used for the first time as an incense at the coronation of Emperor Henry IV.
  The need for spices increased, and the scope of their use grew more and more.

  To cultivate spices, introducing them into the culture required a lot of time and experience. The English, for example, the nutmeg plantations in Penang at first almost half killed because of ignorance of agricultural technology, and only forty years later they were restored and made profitable. Carnation and nutmeg, stolen by the French, did not want to grow on the Mascarenas, but they were well established on the island of Reunion. However, his truly second homeland of carnation found in the English possessions - in Zanzibar and Pemba. And now it is Zanzibar (Tanzania) that gives almost 90% of world production of cloves. While the Dutch (almost twenty years old) tried to acclimatize vanilla in Java, the French made more successful experiments on the same vanilla in Madagascar and Reunion Island and achieved cost-effective production by the middle of the 50s of the XIX century. Hence vanilla came to the island of Mauritius, and then began to be cultivated in other island possessions of France (Tahiti, Fiji, Martinique, Guadeloupe, etc.).
  By the end of the XIX century, all the main classical spices were cultivated mainly in the colonial possessions of England, France and Holland. Of the countries of independent large spice producers remained China and Mexico.
Elimination of the monopoly position of one or two powers in the world market of spices led, first of all, to a drop in prices for spices. But by the end of the XIX century spices were no longer only more affordable, but also ceased to be an object of special veneration. Together with the loss of their role in the economy and social life of states, the admiration and reverence that surrounded spices for many centuries disappeared. Moreover, some classic spices began to disappear altogether in the 20th century. There was a reduction in their range. In Western Europe less and less often imported baden and galgant, sharply reduced imports and production of one of the oldest spices - "heavenly grains."
  The time of general industrialization required other values. Such values ​​in the world market were oil, iron ore, coal, tin, rubber, copper and other industrial raw materials. More profitable now were the production of wheat and meat, the cultivation of sugar cane, cocoa, coffee, bananas. Export and import of steel only the most popular "mass" and therefore the most beneficial spices, like black pepper.
  An important role in this played the established national tastes. For example, red pepper became, almost the main distinguishing feature of the national cuisine of Hungarians, Romanians and Southern Slavs already in the XVIII century. Equally widespread was the use of incomparably more expensive black and Jamaican (scented) peppers in England, France and other countries of Western Europe. Cinnamon, which is necessary in any confectionery industry, became a popular spice over time.
  A new impetus to the massive use of spices was the invention of canned food in the XIX century.
  In the XX century, the world production of spices is growing (now it reaches almost 100,000 tons) and consumption of canned food in all countries is increasing. But, nevertheless, it remains a fact that the use of spices in home life has undoubtedly decreased both in quantity and, in particular, in assortment.
  What is the mystery of the former importance of spices, why were they so important for feeding people in the past and were in the shadows in our everyday life? Let's try to explain this as follows.
First, the food of the people of the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries was, as a rule, more monotonous than today. In the areas where fishing was practiced, the population fed mainly on fish, in livestock areas - meat, rice-growing areas - rice, and so on; there was a wide exchange of products and their transfer to long distances. To diversify the food, it was necessary to diversify, first of all, the taste and smell of the same product. And this could only be achieved with the help of spices.
  Secondly, in the past, the rural population - and it was the majority - did not have the opportunity to harvest significant amounts of fodder for the winter for livestock, so the expansion of the herd was limited: every fall, all the "excessive" cattle were slaughtered and left only a minimum - for brood. As a result, immediately large quantities of meat had to be stored for six months or even a year before the new face. As there were no refrigerators, the meat turned into corned beef or in so-called "dry broths", and the domestic poultry - into canvases, that is, it was originally preserved (or rather preserved). And for this, spices were necessary. And a lot. And most importantly - diverse.
  In the twentieth century, spice substitutes appeared - artificial spices and essences like vanillin, which needed and could be consumed much less than natural. Artificial spices as much cheaper and affordable quickly spread in Germany and other countries forced to import natural spices from abroad.
  The emergence of new chemical medicines also had an impact on reducing the use of spices in everyday life. Previously, people always had at home a set of all kinds of spices, which, depending on the needs of the moment, could be simultaneously consumed both as medicines and as food flavors. But when spices, herbs and roots disappeared from the home pharmacy, giving way to portable and cheap synthetic products, and were not always at hand, they, of course, were becoming less and less used in the kitchen.
  All this taken together seriously pushed spices from their previous positions, especially when the urban population of industrial countries had a great opportunity to diversify their table with imported products.
In addition, in developed industrial countries there has been a significant crowding out of spices in the catering network, with its standardization of recipes by the extensive use of food manufactures - products that do not require labor-intensive methods of preparation and which allow re-heating food after short-term storage.
  Great damage was caused to the international trade exchange and, in particular, to the spice trade, two world wars and the difficult conditions of the post-war years.
  And today, when the standard of living of our people has significantly increased, when the trade exchange with the countries of Asia and Africa has been expanding, when the import of exotic spices has been adjusted, an unforeseen event is taking place: a new generation of buyers who have not actually seen spices since the early 1930s, stores bags and boxes with the inscriptions "cardamom", "ginger," bad ", ask each other in surprise and sellers - what is it, what are they for?
  In recent years, there has been a noticeable interest in food products that are not yet known. In this regard, it seems timely and appropriate to take a more serious and careful approach to the question of the real role that spices play in the everyday life of modern man and, above all, in our nutrition.
  The spices are far from exhausted, and their glorious history is not over yet.
  Perhaps, it opens a new and no less interesting page.

Classification of spices

Most often in home cooking, no more than a dozen spices are consumed. But there are more than one and a half hundred of them! The reason for this limited application is a poor knowledge of spices, inability to orientate in their assortment.

Before proceeding with the classification, let us recall once again that by spices we mean only products of plant origin. Attempts to refer to spices some products of animal origin (musk, tsibet, ambra, garus), which have a strong smell, do not withstand scientifically any criticism. Spices of animal origin do not exist.
However, this does not facilitate the classification of spices. As already mentioned, spices belong to so different botanical classes that it is not only difficult, but impossible, to give them a botanical classification. In addition, spices are extremely different in nature of the plant part used. This fact confused the classifiers, many of whom, finding it difficult to single out any common feature in groups of spices, classified them in appearance: roots, rhizomes, bulbs, bark, leaves, flowers, fruits, kidneys, seeds, nuts, P.

An additional difficulty in the classification of spices is the fact that some spices are used in dry, others - fresh (raw), third, and in that and in another form. Some require pre-complex processing before use, others do not. Should we include such spices in one or different groups? There is something to think about. Since the experience of applying spices has developed historically and certain groups of spices can be considered both in historical and geographical ranges of application, the classification, apparently, should take into account this circumstance.

Proceeding from the above, it is necessary to divide all spices into two large groups: classical (or exotic) spices and spices local.

Classic, or exotic, spices   These are spices used since ancient times, which have become world-wide and have become classical for the vast majority of national cuisines, both Western and Eastern.

Local spices   - spices, most of which have a historically and geographically much smaller range of application or are used exclusively on the spot, that is, near the place of production, and do not withstand long-distance transport.

Classic spices are extremely diverse in nature of the applied parts, and this feature has in this case a purely external, inessential value, since the main value is the maximum of the aroma, regardless of the part of the plant it contains. A more significant common feature for classic spices is that they are all used in cooking in pre-treated and necessarily dry form, which largely determines their worldwide distribution, since in dry form the aromaticity of these spices either appears or increases and reaches maximum, and, moreover, it is in the dry form of the spices of this group that it is possible to preserve and transport for a long time long distances.
  For local spices, on the contrary, it is typical to use mostly fresh, use on the spot or near the place of production. And the differences in the nature of the consumed part are more significant, since they affect the duration of storage and transportation, and thus the degree of prevalence in culinary production. Therefore, local spices are divided into spicy vegetables and spicy herbs.

Spicy vegetables are much more widely distributed geographically, almost universally, and are more widely used in cooking than spicy herbs. Spicy vegetables belong exclusively to cultivated plants. They, in turn, are divided into root crops and bulbs, and in both of them the main parts used are underground, although in some cases elevated ones are used.

Spicy herbs use exclusively the aerial part, usually its upper third - leaves with flowers. Spicy herbs can be cultivated (horticultural) and wild, and many garden plants have wild relatives. A common characteristic difference between wild grasses and garden plants is that the former are sharper and smelly than the latter. But the latter are more tall, give more green mass. This causes certain differences in the method of application of garden and wild-growing herbs. Garden herbs are used mainly in fresh form, wild-growing dried for future use.

Finally, the so-called combined or complex spices (spicy mixtures) constitute a separate group of spices, representing various combinations of spices of different types (from 3 to 24), as well as artificial or synthetic spices that are not natural products.

Of course, the proposed division of spices into groups is to some extent conditional, since in some cases it is difficult to draw a line between the individual groups. However, in general, groups are determined by the most common stable characteristics.
  Take, for example, coriander - spice, known from the deepest antiquity and mentioned in the Bible under the name "manna of heaven". It would seem that age gives her the right to be considered a classic spice. However, in its essence, coriander is a spicy herb known on a larger territory of our country as a chicken or cilantro. Geographically, the area of ​​its most intensive use is limited by a rather narrow zone of Transcaucasia and Central Asia, where it is used in raw (fresh) form as spicy greens. In the rest of the country, in Europe and America, coriander is used only in the form of seeds in bakery, and even then it is rare. Thus, both botanically and by the nature of the application of coriander has more reason to be listed in the group of local spices, in a subgroup of herbs than in classical spices. That's right, for most of the coinciding features, here are divided into groups and all the other spices.

Can they say whether there is any scientific basis for the allocation in our days of some number of spices in the group of "classical" and it would not be more correct to distribute them all according to regional characteristics, for example, in the countries of growth and production? This question should be answered in the negative.

Classic spices have become international in application. And this is their common, most important sign. Throughout the world, in the confectionery business, for example, apply vanilla and cinnamon, and for those who use, it does not matter where these spices are produced. In addition, classical spices stand out in a special group because they are important to know in the first place, because they have long been selecting local spices and used them in national cuisines according to the principle of similarity of their aroma with classical spices. Always focused on classic spices. They were looking for analogues, looking for a replacement in nature, trying to reproduce them in an artificial, synthetic way. So, instead of zest, obtained from citrus fruits, in Russia and other northern countries began to use local melissa, instead of African cloves - Siberian tulle, etc.

  To know the basic, characteristic, typical properties of spices can only be studied at first classical spices, where these properties are expressed more sharply, more clearly, more clearly.
  That's why we begin our review of spices with classic ones.

Classic spices:
Badyan (Anisum stellatum).
  Vanilla.
  Carnation.
  Ginger (zingiber officinale ros).
  Kalgan (more correctly galgant).
  Cardamom (Elettaria Cardamomum).
  Cinnamon.
  Curcuma (curcuma longa l.).
  Laurel (lauras nobilis l.).
  Muscat color and nutmeg.
  Peppers.
  Red peppers (capsicums).
  Pseudo-fingers (xylophia).
  "Fragrant peppers".
  Rosemary (rosmarinus officinalis).
  Zest.
  Saffron (crocus sativus l.).

Bulbous:
  Garlic (allium sativum l.).

Roots:
  Parsley (petroselinum crispum; Petroselinum sativum Hoffm.).
  Pasternak (pastinaca sativa l.).
  Celery (Apium graveolens L.).
  Fennel (anetum foeniculum l., Foeniculum vulgare mill).
  Horseradish (armoracia rusticana lam., Cochlearia armoracia L.).

Spices:
  Azhgon (caram ajowan bent, et hook, trachyspermum copticum L.).
  Ayr (acorns calamus l.).
  Anis (pimpinella anisum l, anisum vulgare gaertn.).
  Basil (Ocimum basilicum L.).
  Mustard.
  Gravilat (Geum urbanum L.).
  Donnixinium (melilotus coeraleus Lam, Trigonella coeralea).
  Oregano (origanum vulgare l.).
  Angelica archangelica, Angelica officinalis Hoffm.).
  Hyssop (hyssopus officinalis l.).
  Calufer (tanacetum balsamita l., Pyretram balsamita).
  Chervil (anthriscus cerefolium hoffm.).
  Kervel Spanish (myrrhis aromatica L. Myrrhis odorata Scop.).
  Kmin (cuminum cyminum l.).
  Coluria (coluria geoides).
  Coriander (coriandrum sativum l.).
  Cresses.
  Lavender (lavandula vera dc; lavandula angustifolia Mill.).
  Lovestock (levisticum officinale koch.).
  Marjoram (origanum majorana, majorana hortensis).
  Melissa (melissa officinalis l.).
  Melissa Turkish, or the Moldovan snake-head (dracocephalum moldavica l.).
  Juniper (juniperus communis l.).
  Mint (mentha).
  Wormwood (artemisia).
  Ruta (ruta graveolens l.).
  Thyme (thymus vulgaris).
  Caraway (carum carvi l.).
  Dill (anethum graveolens l.).
  Fenugreek, or fenugreek (trigonella foenum graecum l.).
  Saber (satureja hortensis l.).
  Winter savory (satureja montana L).
  Thymus (thymus serpyllum l.).
  Chernushka (nigella sativa l.).
  Salvia (salvia officinalis l.).
  Tarragon (artemisia dracunculus l.).

Science of eating spices

It is well known that it is already a kind of skill that is given to every one correctly. This requires and accuracy, and intuition, and sense of proportion, and good sense of smell and touch. All these qualities are all the more necessary when preparing food with spices. It requires a very special skill, multiplied by the knowledge and ability of the cook.

How often do you meet people complaining that there is nothing to cook, that the products are all the same, that there are no "new" products. Of course, in fact, in fact, the products are not so diverse: hardly ten types (groups) of meat, fish, vegetables, mushrooms, fruits, fats and oils, dairy products, cereals and flour are typed. True, you can vary - cook and fry, salt, make sweet or sour, but all this is able to give us an additional ten or three or four options. But the dishes are thousands and tens of thousands! And besides, we do not mean those dishes that differ from each other only by name, as, unfortunately, often happens in bad culinary books, but dishes that differ among themselves in consistency, taste and aroma.
  The matter, therefore, is not in the variety of products, but in being able to cook from the same products different to the taste and aroma of the dish. Of the most that neither is the simplest - whether it's potatoes or cabbage, rice or fish - a good chef can cook not just a good, but a very tasty and new dish. And to do this often help him spices, provided that he is with them on "you". This means that one must have or develop a delicate and well-developed taste, without which even the most scrupulous observance of the recipes and rules of technology will not allow cooking tasty dish. The business decides how the cooks express themselves "bringing the dish to taste", which is achieved by adding to it the most insignificant quantities of salt, spices and, most importantly, spices.

Of course, we can not teach everyone how to cook. But to teach some basic techniques and rules for the use of spices, it is possible, and indeed necessary.
It is worth to emphasize once again that the most characteristic for the application of spices is an unprecedented variety of techniques. You can, of course, simply, without philosophizing slyly, pepper or pepper with mustard, or, at last, sprinkle a dish with garlic, but you can use spices in a different way, more subtly, including without introducing them directly into the dish. For example, in France, poultry for the week before the slaughter is added to the food of various spices - red pepper, garlic, cinnamon, ginger, savory, making its meat acquire a peculiar refined taste.
  Thus, spices, unlike other components of the dish, can be introduced into it at various stages, from the moment the product has not yet reached the cutting board, and to the point when it has already been removed from the plate and fed to the table. This fact alone should give an idea of ​​how diverse the forms of application of spices are, how unexpected results they can give in the kitchen.
  But, first of all, you should know for what purpose spices are used, what effect they have on the other products and on the taste of the dish as a whole.

The purposes of spice applications

Spices can be used for different purposes:
  1. To correct an unpleasant or specific natural smell of the original products or a ready-made dish.
  2. To enhance the external appeal of the dish, giving it the appropriate color, smell, or both.
  3. To give the dish a completely new flavor, not inherent in the original product, but characteristic of a particular spice or mixture thereof.
  4. To give the dish a special taste.
  5. To increase the safety of products or a ready-made dish, to preserve it, to prevent any spoilage.
  In the process of preparing a dish, these goals can be set and executed separately and in a complex manner, depending on the specific task. It is clear that the effect of spices on food will always depend on what goals we set ourselves. In other words, the effect of spices is subject to our strict control, and is not at all random.

Action of spices

So, spices can ennoble food with both color and aroma. They can affect color in two ways: first, color the dish in bright, attractive colors, and secondly, color the products in masking tones - for meat, for greens, to give a kind of toasting, goldenness is not really a roasted product, causing y we are thereby corresponding associations. In the first case, most often used turmeric, saffron, fresh bright greens of dill, chervil, fennel, celery, coriander, basil and other herbs. In the second - red pepper, cinnamon, buckwheat, ginger and again the fresh herbs of spicy herbs. But it should be remembered that the choice of color depends not only on the dye, but also on which product is to be dyed. A bright dye will give the desired effect only if the natural surface of the product is perfectly white, as is often the case with rice and fresh fish. In all other cases, it is more appropriate to use a masking color that can hide an unattractive gray or other vague color of the product. But basically spices ennoble food with aroma and in the following way influence the product:
  1. Beat the original odor raw product   or neutralize it (5) .
  2. Complement the food with a new fragrance.
  3. Shade the natural flavor of the product, making it contrast with itself.
  4. Sharply enhance the aroma of the dish, attracting special attention to it.
  5. Give the dish any new, unusual flavor and sharpness, characteristic not so much for the main product as for the spice.
  6. Sometimes interrupt the former flavor, even if it was not unpleasant (6) .
  7. Refine the product, affecting its structure and composition. Not only contribute to better preservation and maintenance of freshness of food, but also improve the consistency of a number of foods, especially meat and fish (7) .
  True, spices are capable not only positively, but also negatively affect the food in violation of the rules for handling them.

Knowledge of the measure

The main thing - do not pepper! This means that you must give the dish only the necessary, sufficient amount of flavor so that the spice is present in the dish and at the same time does not clog the natural taste of the product, but only shades or strengthens it. If, however, several spices are introduced into the dish, then their combination must be so subtle and elusive that only you can list which spices have been used. Consequently, the art is that spices in general do not stand out in the dish and none of them stand out in their mixture.
With the use of salt, we are helped in many respects by the knowledge of the quantity: for such a pot - one teaspoon, per kilogram of such and such a product - so much. These quantities are more or less unchanged. With spices the situation is much more complicated. Their quantity changes dramatically not only in relation to the volume or weight of the product, but also depending on its ability to absorb and neutralize spices, from its natural or foreign odor, from the consistency of the product, from the method of cooking and the type of food, and finally from the temperature dishes and even rooms.
  So, per kilogram of fish spices goes more than a kilogram of vegetables and meat; when cooking spices, they require a smaller laying of them than with roasting the same products; in cold dishes spices go more than hot.
  However, making a conclusion from all this, the reader should not rush to the other extreme - laying too few spices or even refusing to use them. It must be remembered that the spice of spice is different. It is impossible to establish any limits to the use of certain spices. Some of them, for example onions, garlic, parsley, dill, can often be used in relatively large quantities in comparison with other spices. And at the same time, each of them has its own "ceiling", its limit, which inevitably follows a deterioration in taste. This property is the same for a relatively inoffensive bow, and for an extremely insidious saffron.
  If spicy vegetables can be consumed in grams and even tens of grams   (but no more!), then already spicy herbs (especially in dry form) are used in tenths of a gram, but to lassic spices, as a rule, hundredths of a gram. So, 100 grams of black ground pepper is usually enough for one person for a whole 5-6 years, which averages only 1.5 grams per month or about 0.05 grams per day. All this is subject to daily systematic use, which is known to be rare. As for spicy herbs, 100 grams of even the most common of them will suffice for a family of 4 people for 2-3 years, provided that there are several such herbs.

Of course, it is impossible to measure daily portions in hundredths of a gram, so the norms of spices, expressed in weight units, are used only in public catering.   In the home kitchen apply another account and other terminology. Here the account goes to peas (grains), leaves, twigs, buds, denticles - for whole spices or for a portion of a teaspoon and "on the tip of the knives - for ground spices. This account is not as subjective as it may seem. For example, one gram of weight corresponds to one half of nutmeg, five capsules of cardamom, 15 buds of cloves, 17 peas of Jamaican pepper, 28 grains of black pepper, 8-9 to medium leaves of bay leaves and 125 coriander grains. The weight of a teaspoon (with top) of ground dry spicy herbs ranges from 2 to 3 grams.
  The norms of their use for the description of individual spices for volume and the weight of products should be regarded as indicative, and not necessarily mandatory, since these norms can be varied in one direction or another in each specific situation.

The form and time of adding spices. Temperature conditions

The norms and quantities of spices used are closely related to the form of application. Gram of peppercorns and grams of ground pepper are not at all the same. They have different strengths. The more finely divided spices, the faster and fuller they are extracted, and that is why the ground spices always go into the dish less than whole.
  In the above example with the norm of pepper for 5 years, we did not accidentally talk about ground pepper. The consumption of pepper peas will be almost three times as great. Whole spices give a weaker, but more gentle, less harsh flavor and not a burning taste. They are more difficult to spoil a dish, it is almost impossible to "shift", as this is not a loose material, but a certain number of units - grains, leaves, buds, sticks (if it is a question of classical spices), bouquets, "whiskies", "roots" ( if it is a question of spicy herbs).
  Whole spices can be removed in advance or in time from the dish, if at the preliminary sample there are at least the slightest signs of bitterness. That is why whole spices are preferable to use where possible in soups, compotes and other liquid media, including brines and marinades, as well as in cases of prolonged heating of the dish, when using high temperatures or when introducing into the dish such products that increase the extractiveness of spices (wine, vinegar, etc.). In the absence of whole spices, you can use ground spices wrapped in narrow linen pouches, lowered drinks into the dish for the required time for a soft, tender savoring of the dish.

Intermediate between whole and ground spices are broken, crushed, cut and pressed. They are used in those cases when it is necessary to obtain complete extraction of extractives from spices without raising the temperature and for a long time or to obtain an average flavor and taste sharpness with a slight increase in temperature. For example, in salting, pickling and marinade, some spices, mostly spicy vegetables and herbs, are placed in a cut (dill), broken (laurel), crushed (red pepper) and davlen (cumin, anise, garlic), in the same way, as in the soup, if you want to get it medium-sharp put pressed black pepper.

Ground spices exist in two forms: in the form of powders and powders. The most commonly used powders or actually ground spices (with grain size ranging from semolina to fine salt), going into all the second hot dishes and laid in a few minutes (in salads, as well as in minced meat and confectionery) until ready. Powders are used comparatively rarely and only in a fully prepared dish or confectionery product: for sandwiches, in sauces and oil creams, for sprinkling the surface of confectionery.

Thus, the form of the spice bookmark is closely related to the time of laying and the temperature of the dish. The larger the spice, the longer it can be put into food, the more it is crushed, the less time it can stay in the dish, the less it must be affected by temperatures. So, brooms of dry grasses, bags of ground spices and bouquets of fresh herbs can be kept in cold and slightly warm sauces for an entire hour, and in boiling soups they should be lowered only for a few minutes.

Peas, grains and pods different peppers   can lie in salting and souring for months, and their powders should be covered in a hot dish only 1-2 minutes before cooked.

Fresh spicy herbs and vegetables, if they are finely chopped, are just as sensitive to temperature increase as ground spices. In some cases, they are even more sensitive and even more extracted than dry ground ones. These are garlic, dill, celery, basil, savory, chervil. Therefore, they should be laid in a hot dish, not even 2 minutes before the readiness, but best at the time of readiness, when the dish is removed from the fire and no longer boils. In such a hot but not boiling dish, these spices can better brew for 2-3 minutes and elasticly give your food its flavor.

Temperature, heating, among other things, also serves as one of the measures for the dosage of spices. The slightest overestimate of the dose even in the presence of normal heating will immediately show up, it will affect, as it will lead to the appearance of bitterness. Therefore, it is much easier to abuse spices in a cold dish than in a hot dish. Dosing quantities of spices, we must remember and the need to "dose" the temperature. For example, secondary heating of food with a normal amount of spices can lead to a known damage to the taste of the dish. That's why dishes with spices are not recommended to leave and reheat again. But even without reheating the spices in a long-stayed dish can sometimes alter its original flavor and aroma. Therefore, dishes with spices are best eaten freshly prepared.

In addition to the differences in the heat treatment and the temperature of the dish, the environment in which the spices are used in the preparation process, be it liquids or solid media (dough, mashed potatoes, etc.) also has a considerable influence on the development of the aroma and taste of food with spices.

Wednesday

In different environments spices behave differently. With the greatest intensity they are extracted in alcohols and acids. However, their character as a rule varies, They are made more harsh, burning bitter, their best features - aroma and tenderness of taste - go to the background. Therefore, it is best to avoid the interaction of spices with these environments, or at least to minimize it. In all cases, when interacting spices with vinegar, the dose should be significantly reduced. The same applies to spirits, where spices are extracted, although softer.

As for water, the spices dissolve in it already weaker, and this solubility increases in direct proportion to the rise in water temperature, which should be recognized as a normal medium for spices. The rate of laying spices in water should always be set depending on its temperature and duration of exposure.

With the interaction of spices with fats and vegetable oils, there are already other laws. With a weak and moderate heating of fats, with a strong gradual heating, but in the absence of boiling spices, although not particularly intense, but "willingly" give the fat the finest, finest parts of its flavor. Therefore, with a fat and oil dosage of spices is not terrible to increase a little. However, at high temperatures of fats and oils, especially when boiling, spices can either very quickly evaporate, or completely burn out without residue. So in this case, even when you bookmark it large portions   their aroma will remain almost imperceptible for us.
  This applies to all kinds of spices, including spicy vegetables. Therefore, pass the spicy vegetables - onion, parsley, parsnip, fennel root - in fats and oils should be extremely cautious, only until the appearance of a golden hue, not at all frying. To do this, it is best to passivate not in a pan, but in a saucepan with an oval bottom or in a saucepan, on low heat, but in a previously well-heated (so-called overheated) oil or fat.

Since the main beginning, thanks to which spices have aroma, are various essential oils and other volatile compounds, the art of consuming spices in many ways boils down to keeping the maximum amount of essential oils in the cooked food. This task is not easy, because due to increased volatility essential oils tend to escape when heated from the enclosing shell. On the other hand, the aroma of spices can manifest themselves at full strength only when spices are heated to some extent. Consequently, the task of the cook is to balance these contradictions - to give the fragrances an opportunity to escape from the shell and not allow them at the same time to escape from the dish, in time to detain, fix them. Of course, true masters of their craft can find this truly "golden mean". To do this, it is not enough to keep the lids tightly closed. Here we need other methods. These include maneuvering the temperature of the dish and the medium, changing the ways of heat treatment of the same dish. Finally, special methods of introducing spices into food are also used.

Basics - emulsions

Spices can be brought into contact directly with the product without any medium, both in cold and hot dishes. For example, already prepared cheeses can be given cumin, sage, rosemary, meat dishes cooked on charcoal can be flavored with red and black pepper, onions, garlic, cilantro. But still more often spices are introduced into food and into the environment with the help of basic emulsions, the main task of which is to fix, hold, fix the aroma of spices in a dish.

Essential emulsions usually have a high adsorbing and enveloping capacity: they absorb the fragrance and "fix" it on a particular food product.

Emulsion bases act simultaneously as carriers of spices and as control-reinforcing escorts, by means of which spices not only come into closer contact with the product, but also increase their extractivity partly due to the presence of elements of an acid medium in them.

The most common carriers for spices are various sauces with egg, flour, butter, milk basis or seasoning of vegetable origin with an acidic and sweet and sour base (apple, plum, quince, tomato puree, lemon, orange, pomegranate juice). In sauces spices are mostly fixed, in seasonings their aroma is even more intensified. Therefore, the choice of sauce or seasoning depends on what spicy aromatic scale we want to create in this or that dish.

Adding sugar and salt to the bases can be given either salt or sweet flavor, as well as sweet and sour-salty. Often changing the taste of the base dramatically changes the purpose of the same spices. So, the same combination of nutmeg, cardamom, black pepper, saffron with a salt base can be used for fish dishes, and with sweet - for confectionery.

On the basis of emulsions spices are distinguished better, more clearly and simultaneously in a more relaxed, refined or more spicy form, depending on the nature of the base. Thus, emulsion bases help to expand the aromatic-flavor range and timbre of available spices, and thereby even more enrich and diversify the food.

The use of sauces as a basis for spices is typical for Western European and, especially for French cuisine, which includes hundreds of sauces. Sour and sweet-sour seasonings of vegetable origin are used mainly in Oriental cuisines - in Armenian, Georgian, Middle Eastern.

Spices - basic and basic spices

Sometimes spices, usually spicy vegetables, can serve as the basis, which act as carriers of other spices. These are onions, parsnips, fennel root, horseradish, mustard, garlic, red celery, parsley, pepper, dill. The nature of the carrier is especially clear in mustard, which is almost not used as spice alone.

Spice-bases as Bearers are usually taken in proportions that are tens of times greater than the other spices introduced into them, but they do not necessarily necessarily dominate the others in their flavor and taste. It depends on what and how many other spices are added in addition to the base. When preparing a spicy base, onions and spicy roots are finely chopped and gently passaged in oil, at the end of the passage, the remaining spices are added in the ground form. Garlic, horseradish, red pepper, dill is also used finely chopped or grated, but in a cold form: in their mass, add salt, acid seasoning and spices. Mustard is prepared according to special recipes, providing for both heating, and infusion, and the addition of water and acids.

The most commonly used as a spice-based onion - a kind of "bread" among spices, without which it is almost impossible to cook, fry or bake any fish, meat, vegetable or mushroom dish.

The application of these spices as a basis led to the fact that some of them gradually turned into the main spices, which became more often than others to be used not only as bases, but also completely independently. Along with them, some other spices, which are distinguished by their relatively sharp and pronounced special aroma, are among the most frequently used ones. This created a dozen of the most common main spices, which occupy the first 10 places in terms of frequency and quantity of consumption among all other spices. The places in this ten are distributed as follows: 1) onion, 2) red pepper and black pepper, 3) garlic, 4) dill, 5) parsley, 6) horseradish and mustard, 7) bay leaf, 8) cloves, 9) cinnamon , 10) Jamaican, or "fragrant" pepper.

Spices and salt

Spices are constantly used along with salt. To properly apply them, it is important to know how they interact with it.

First of all, it matters which of the media is injected with salt - sour, water, oil, alcohol. Everywhere the salt enhances the effect of spices, increases their extractivity, but it is especially noticeable in acids and water. That is why, for example, a soup with spices should be salted more cautiously than the same soup without spices, or roast with the same spices, dissolved in oils. Hence it is clear that when interacting with spices, you can consume much less salt than usual, which, incidentally, is not always taken into account in culinary recipes.
  However, nedosol in the presence of spices in a dish is even more unpleasant than a lack of salty food without spices, since the spices are too stand out on a completely fresh basis. Therefore, there is absolutely no direct relationship between the amount of salt and spices, and much depends on the intuition and subtlety of the chef's taste, on how well it will be able to find the "golden mean".
  It is important, however, to emphasize that spices, having an undoubted influence on the reduction of salt norms in a dish, enable the body to obtain less salt and thereby not only directly (via the mechanism of the urine and the sweat system) but also indirectly hinder the supersaturation of the body with salts. At the same time, spices contribute to the improvement of the consistency of food products, since their production with less salt makes the products more juicy, tender, soft, tasty, since they preserve the natural juices better. Even such a saline food product, like fish, allows a reduction in the norm of salt when cooking and roasting, if you increase the dose of spices, that is, to some extent replace salt. The best substitute in such cases is for fried fish a set of dill, onion, thyme (or thyme), and for boiled fish - from onions, leeks, black pepper, anise, parsley, dill.
  Finally, salt, as is known, slows down the boiling   and, consequently, cooking the product, and spices - somewhat speed up this process. Therefore, when cooking with a lower salt norm and with an increased proportion of spices, the speed of cooking and product readiness is increased.

Selection of spices for a dish, their compatibility with food and each other

Using this or that spice, it is important, of course, to know in advance how well it combines with this food product. After all, there are times when spice may not fit the dish at all.
When describing various spices, it was indicated with which food products each of them combined, and in relation to some contained a special warning - with what they can not be combined.
  To avoid incoherence or mutual neutralization of spices in the process of cooking, the most favorable mixtures are checked in advance and constitute the most favorable mixtures - they are also given in the relevant chapter.
  In addition, one should keep in mind such a rule: if spices are combined with any product individually, then they are combined with it and all together, no matter how many are taken in each given case - two, three, five or ten . For example, with chicken meat   Separate spices such as onions, dill, garlic, cinnamon, red pepper, savory, bay leaf, and tubberry are combined separately. This means that they are all taken together and in any pairs and other combinations can also be used with chicken meat. Or take another example: onions, parsley, dill, black pepper, cardamom, nutmeg, saffron combine with the fish separately, which means that they will be combined with it in any combination. On the contrary, cumin is not combined with fish. Consequently, adding cumin to all of the above mixture or to each of its constituent spices will create an incompatible with the fish combination.

Along with completely incompatible spices there are also those that neutralize the aroma of other spices or substantially weaken them. Such horseradish belongs to such spices. Therefore, it is used mainly separately and try not to introduce into the composition of spicy mixtures, so that it does not kill the aroma of other spices. However, horseradish can be used as a carrier-carrier in combination with dill, lemon zest, tarragon, basil, melissa, on the aroma of which it has no neutralizing effect, but, on the contrary, refines and develops it.

The combination of spices also largely depends on the basis with which spices are used. It is enough, for example, such a base as salt to replace with sugar - and the same spices that are suitable for fish, are quite suitable for gingerbread.

However, not all spices have such mobility and the ability to approach a different basis. But these "not all" are a minority. These are vanilla, used only on a sweet basis, and on the other hand, red pepper and garlic, absolutely inconceivable in combination with sweet dishes, that is, with a sugar base. On the contrary, black pepper perfectly combines both with salted, and with sour and sweet dishes, entering, for example, on sugar basis in the composition of gingerbread. That's why black pepper is rightfully considered a universal spice.

Spices are able not only to change their character depending on the basis, but, on the contrary, it is essential to influence the change in the nature of the dish if it is based on a neutral product - rice, potatoes, cottage cheese, dough. So, if you add onion, garlic and dill to boiled rice with butter, you can get a satisfying second course, and if you add cinnamon or vanilla to the same rice, you will get a light third dish; if you add garlic and red pepper to the cottage cheese, you will get an acute snack, and if you add buckwheat, vanilla and nutmeg to the curd, you will get a dessert dish like Easter.

Is it possible to eat spices everywhere?

On this account, there are two opposing views. One of them is based on the fact that spices can only be used traditionally - only in strictly defined dishes of national cuisines, and not in everyday, ordinary food. Supporters of another opinion argue that spices can be applied moderately to all dishes. It is assumed that a high culinary culture and the availability of a wide range of spices at the disposal of cooks are indispensable conditions for the wide creative use of spices. After all, not knowing where and how to use spices, you can only spoil the food. Only with a large selection of spices can they achieve their constant and at the same time unobtrusive use in everyday kitchen, both in the home and public. In doing so, it should always be remembered that only a small part of the spices is considered permanent and most frequently consumed. The rest, used much less often, always play the role of specific additives designed to inform the food of the most subtle, intermediate shades and nuances of taste and aroma. They are called to create exactly that individuality and unusualness that should distinguish one dish from another and which can be eliminated by the unreasonable and constant use of two to three spice-on-duty spirits.

Modern cuisine recognizes the wide application of spices on the basis of the centuries-old culinary experience of its and other countries as a result of raising the general culture. The use of spices consists not in indiscriminately pouring more spices into food, but in understanding their properties, mastering their assortment and methods of use, to use creatively to enrich the taste and aromatic qualities of food.
  That is why we consider it unnecessary to point out that nutmeg should be introduced into a roll cut from veal, and celery into stewed chestnuts, for such instructions do not give anything to understand the nature of the spices. Instead, it is sufficient to understand that celery is combined with a wide variety of meat soup   and with vegetable dishes, and nutmeg - with fish, meat and confectionery. Such instructions warn elementary errors and at the same time open up the space of creative imagination.

Preparation and storage of spices

Exotic spices go on sale in a completely ready form, so there is no problem with their preparation before eating, except that in certain cases (according to the recipe) they should be grinded. Another thing - local spices.
  Most of them enter the market fresh, in the summer, while in winter they are practically absent. Our food industry   while produces a fairly limited assortment of local dry spices, And therefore, they need to be harvested for their own use.

In some cases, when describing individual spices, we have already noted how to dry a particular plant and when it is more expedient to collect it for drying. Such instructions were made when it was an exception to the usual rules of drying. Below we will dwell on how to dry the vast majority of local spices - spicy vegetables and herbs.

Spicy vegetables - root vegetables, as well as roots and roots of spicy herbs, eaten, first thoroughly washed cold water, then cleaned from the very surface layer, impregnated with the smell of earth, and then cut into strips (along, and not across the layer). Only small roots are cut across the layer. The thinner and finer the roots are cut, the faster and better they dry. Dry the roots best in the sun, sprinkling them beforehand on the canvas. Only when the roots dry well, but they will not crumble into powder when erased, they can be dried additionally in the light spirit of the oven, but in no case should it be heated in the oven. Drying usually lasts a week.

Spicy herbs and tops of spicy vegetables are dried as follows. If collected from their own garden, gently picking up the tops, then the spicy grass is not washed. If the grasses are bought in the market or in the store, then first of all they are separated from the roots and thoroughly sorted, separating all the withered, yellowed or spoiled parts, and then rinsed several times in cold water. Then, the leaves are separated from the stems and subsequently dried separately.
  First of all, spread the leaves and stems with a thin layer on the canvas and allow to dry from excess water. Then cut the stems into small rings (0.3 centimeters), and leaves leave whole and continue drying on the canvas, exposed in the sun.
  In urban conditions, it is best to dry on a windowsill with an open window, so that the sun will warm the grass in the morning, and then the whole day they would be in the shade. In this case, fermentation occurs most intensively, the herbs do not lose their natural color and, conversely, their aroma usually intensifies. Only when the grass dries well, it can be packaged for storage.
  Well dried is considered such a grass, which when squeezing the sheet with your fingers turns into a powder. This degree of drying is achieved on the fourth to the fifth day, depending on how dry the grass was at first. Sometimes drying lasts a week. It is important only not to dry the spicy grass, that is not to leave it open after it has already dried well.
  In case of drying, spicy herbs lose flavor, and with it color, become not bright green, but yellowish. Dried roots, stems, leaves are placed in glass jars with a tightly closed (screwed) lid or cork. In this state they can be stored for up to three years without losing useful properties. At the same glass cans should be dark, and the cans with spices should be stored in a dark cupboard, because from the light spices are destroyed as well as from the access of air or moisture.
Sometimes resort to the storage of dill and green parsley with salt, which is mixed with finely shredded fresh grass. However, this method of preserving spicy herbs, firstly, can not be extended to all types of them, and secondly, they do not achieve genuine preservation of the product, since nutrients   Very quickly washed in brine, where they are soon oxidized. In addition, the use of such a "concentrate" is very limited - only in soups, and because of significant salinity in fairly small doses. That is why it is more expedient to store and store spices in dry form.

If the spicy grass is dried by all the rules and stored in hermetically sealed, previously well-dried glassware, then after two to three weeks of storage it develops a strong aroma, which, it is said, "insists". Therefore, use spicy dry grass should be quickly, in any case not leave the lid carelessly closed, otherwise the whole fragrance will disappear very soon, and the grass itself will wither. With accurate storage, it is able to maintain its properties, as already said, for several years.

Mixtures of spices are also harvested for the future and stored in a ground form in a glass bowl. It is only necessary to carefully monitor that in the preparation of a dry mixture of spices the grinding of all its parts is the same, and also that all components of the mixture be dried equally well. If one of the spices is not dried, then in the end it will spoil the whole mixture.

Negative properties of spices

Spices can add a bitterness to a dish if the quantitative measure is not met and especially when it overheats, even when the quantitative measure is correctly observed. They are able to make the dish unnecessarily hot and bitter, also when they are combined in an incomprehensible combination with substances that enhance the extractivity, and especially when the share of salt or vinegar in the dish increases.

To correct a rancid dish from spices is almost impossible. It is possible to get rid of the increased stinginess, but when this burning sensation reaches a relatively moderate degree. At the same time, add an additional liquid (water, broth, fruit juices), or paste (apple, tomato, plum puree), or neutral absorbent products (rice, potatoes, noodles, vermicelli).

Knowledge of the action and properties of spices, of course, helps the chef to form the taste and aroma of the dish. But this is not enough. The taste of a dish with spices depends on a number of other conditions.

COOKING RECIPES WITH SPICES

There are no recipes in any cookbook. They are created in the process of working on a book about spices and repeatedly tested. Their distinguishing feature is a very simple set of products and extreme simplicity of preparation.
  Recipes are calculated on 4 portions.

Refreshing salad with radish (Great Russian)

Products |: 1 small radish, 1 medium carrot, 1 apple (antonovka), 3-4 cloves garlic, 1/4 lemon, 1/2 teaspoon dried peel.
  Vegetables thoroughly wash with a brush, peel and grate on a fine grater. Stir the mixture evenly. Add finely-cut garlic and zest (1/2 teaspoon dry or 1/4 lemon fresh). Lemon juice squeeze into a mass, stir again, slightly salt.

Salad with horseradish

Products |: 1 large carrot, 1/4 of horseradish root, 1 apple, 1/4 lemon (or 1 teaspoon of zest), 1/2 of an odd spoon of sugar, a pinch of salt.
  Prepare according to the previous recipe. Mix the zedra with sugar and lemon juice, and then move with grated vegetables.

Salad with walnuts

Products |: 1 carrot medium, 1 radish margelan (red), 5-b walnuts, 1/4 lemon (zest and juice), 4 cloves of garlic.
  Vegetables grate on a fine grater, nuts crushed in a mortar, chopped garlic, mix and sprinkle with lemon juice, salt to taste. Peel the lemon zest from the lemon and add it to the salad.
  This nourishing salad is good to serve for breakfast.

Raw cauliflower   in a spicy paste

Products |: 1 fork of young cauliflower, 100 g of thick sour cream, 1 teaspoon of fenugreek (powder) or marjoram, 1 pinch of salt, 3-4 cloves of garlic, 1/2 teaspoon of parsley (powder), 1 teaspoon of dill, 25 g of cheese "Roquefort" or 2 teaspoons of green cheese.
  Spice and salt stir in sour cream, grind this mass with cheese until a homogeneous paste is formed. Rinse cabbage in cold water, separate each inflorescence from the stalk from the stalk (thick and large cut into 2-4 parts along the axis), remove the damaged area with a thin knife on the blossoming outer part of the cabbage, scald with boiled water the cabbage so cleaned and rinse again with cold water .
  Cooked "sprigs" of cabbage to take for legs, dunk in sour cream with spices and eat like salad, raw. You can also use radish, washed and peeled in the same way.

Mustard cheese

Products |: 1 packet of cheese fused "Wave", 1 / 2-1 teaspoon of prepared mustard, 1 teaspoon of sage (powder), 3 teaspoons of butter.
Cheese grind in a cup, add mustard and mix well until a uniform mass is formed. Sage mixed with butter, then add to the cheese pasta and mix thoroughly, Use as butter for spreading on bread (black and white).

Cheese spicy with onions and eggs

2 packs processed cheese   "Wave", 1 teaspoon adzhika (or 1/2 teaspoon red pepper), 4-cloves garlic (finely chopped), 2-3 peas black pepper (mashed), 1/2 teaspoon salt, 2 onions, 1 tbsp . a spoon of sunflower oil, 1 teaspoon of dried dill (or 2 teaspoons fresh), 1 steep egg (finely chopped).
  Gently stir the cheese in porcelain or enameled dishes, adding as a solvent gradually 2-3 st. spoons of meat or fish broth or hot (warm) water, boiled with onion peel so that the cheese has acquired the consistency of very thick sour cream. Then add adzhika, garlic, pepper, dill and stir well into this mass. Finely chopped onion lightly fry in sunflower oil and mix with cheese mass.
  Use as butter for sandwiches (especially with black bread), as a snack for breakfast, snack. In a more liquid dilution with a steep chopped egg - like gravy to boiled hot fish (especially to sea-cod, halibut, macrus, etc.)

Cheese spicy rosemary

Products:   100 grams of hard cheese (Soviet, Dutch, Kostroma, Poshekhonsky), 10 g of brine cheese (vats, tushinsky, suluguni, kobi, osetian, Georgian), 1 teaspoon of rosemary (or sage), 5 cloves of garlic, 5 grains of white pepper, 2-3 sprigs of dill (fresh) or basil (fresh or in powder).
  Grate the cheese on a fine grater, mix until smooth. From the dried spices prepare the powder and mix with fresh (dill, finely chopped garlic). Evenly mix spices with cheese mass.
  Use in pasta, noodles, vermicelli (boiled). You can sprinkle with this cheese black bread, warmed in the oven.

Kefir spicy

Products |: 0.5 liters of kefir (1 packet or 1 bottle), 3-4 cloves of garlic, 1/2 teaspoon of red pepper (or 1 teaspoon of Adzhika), 1/2 teaspoon of dill and salt.
  Garlic finely chopped, mixed with pepper, dill and salt, pour into kefir and stir well. Kefir to leave to stand in the open ware (necessarily enameled, porcelain or glass) for 4 5 hours.
To eat with finely chopped black bread (like a turkey), and also with boiled potatoes, pickles. To the dish was not too thick, for 0.5 liters of kefir you need to take 1 cucumber and 2 potatoes. Potatoes and cucumbers must be finely chopped (1 cm 3 each).

Beetroot in the Volga region

Products:   1 kg of beet, 250 g of carrots, 5-bp. dried mushrooms, 1-2 onions, 1/2 lemon, 100-150 g sour cream or a glass of kefir, 8 cloves of garlic, 8 grains of black pepper, 3 leaves of bay leaves, 1/2 teaspoon of red pepper, 1 / 2-1 teaspoon of mint , 1 teaspoon of salt.
  Vegetables peeled, rinsed and cut into large pieces (small beets in half, medium in four parts, large - in b-8 pieces), then put in a metal pan or kazanok, pour cold water so that only cover the vegetables, add dry mushrooms and boil . When the water boils, remove the mushrooms, cut into strips and again throw into a saucepan. Immediately do not put salt, finely chopped onions and reduce the fire to slightly noticeable, leaving the food to languish. When the water is almost boiled, pour black pepper, peppermint, lemon peel, half of garlic and bay leaf and let it dry for another 3-4 minutes, then mix everything well, warm up more, no more than 5 minutes. In the meantime, sour cream with garlic, red pepper and stir. Turn off the fire, squeeze the lemon juice onto the beet and let it stand for 1-2 minutes. After that, you can serve to the table, cutting into smaller pieces and watering sour cream as a sauce. Serve as an independent snack for dinner and breakfast, at the beginning of lunch or after the second meat dishes.

Sea fish raw. Crude halibut

Products:   250-300 g halibut fillets, 1-2 bunches of green onions (from 1 or 2 onions), 1 carrot, 1-2 teaspoons of dried dill and lemon peel, 1 lemon juice, 1 teaspoon tarragon, 1 steep egg, 1 / 2 teaspoons white pepper (black or red), 1 pinch of laurel powder, salt to taste.
  A piece of a well-frozen halibut fillet is grated on a large grater, add a finely chopped green onion, grated carrots, ground spices and sprinkled with lemon juice, squeezing it onto the fish-vegetable mass. Then add salt and gently mix well, not letting the fish soften. Egg chop and mix with white pepper (can be with black or red). Fish stock with egg is not to mix - serve them on separate plates. Immediately serve as a cold snack.

Tortilla crude with soy sauce

Products:   250-300 g fillet of halibut, 1-1.5 st. spoons soy sauce, salt to taste.
Grilled halibut fillet on a large grater, mix with 1-1,5 st. spoons of soy sauce or other sharp fish-soy sauce. Almost no salt if the sauce is salty enough. Immediately serve on the table either as a snack or as a second dish with boiled potatoes.

Borsch refreshing

Products:   5-bp. dry mushrooms, 1 onion, 1 beet, 1 carrot, 1 potato, 1 teaspoon garnish bouquet, 5-b black pepper grains, 3-4 st. spoons of sour cream, 1/2 teaspoon of fresh or dry dill, 2-3 pcs. bay leaf, 1 teaspoon of salt, juice and peel 1/2 lemon, 1 apple (antonovka), 1/8 of an average cabbage head.
  Pour 3-4 plates of water in enameled dishes, put mushrooms in it and put on strong fire, bring to a boil, put the finely chopped onion, beet strips I carrot straws:
  (carrots - 10 minutes after beet). Remove the mushrooms, finely chopped and put in a borsch. Then add the potato, cabbage, apple, cut into cubes, cut into 4 parts, and boil for 7-8 minutes. Then put a bouquet of garnishes, peppers, bay leaves and cook for another 3-5 minutes. Turn off the fire, add finely chopped garlic, squeeze the lemon, put the zest, wait 3 minutes, then pour over the plates. In each plate put on 1 tbsp. spoon of sour cream.

Fish, sea, roasted with chopsticks in rice flour

Products:   400 g fish fillets (halibut, flounder, pike or cod), 2-3 tbsp. spoons of rice flour, 2-5 tbsp. spoons of vegetable oil, 2 teaspoons of dried dill, zest and juice of 1 lemon, 2 onions.
  Fish chopsticks with a thickness of 1.5-2 cm and a length of 4-5 cm, it is good to tamp them with rice flour. After breading, add salt and let lie for 5-10 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a pan, salt it lightly and then fry the fish sticks in it until a golden crust is formed. Finished sticks to remove from the oil and put in a row on a wide pan. When the frying pan is full, pour the fish with the vegetable oil remaining in the saucepan, cover it with finely chopped onions and spices, cover with a lid and put on a small fire for 10-12 minutes. After this, gently mix the onion and fish, so that the onion is down, cover again and allow to cool. After 10 minutes, squeeze the lemon juice on the fish, let it soak. Garnish with fried potatoes. After 1-2 hours, when the dish becomes completely cold, it will be even tastier. But it can be eaten and hot.

Solid

Products: 0.5 kg of fish or fish fillets, 1-2 eggs, 10-12 grains of black pepper, 1-2 teaspoons of dry dill and dry parsley, 1-2 tablespoons. spoons of rice flour, 1-2 onions, 4-5 potatoes, salt, horseradish, 3-4 st. tablespoons sunflower oil.
  Cut fish meat from bones and skin, cut into narrow, thin slices ("noodles"); finely chop onion, mix with fish "noodles", add pepper (ground), dill, parsley, beat eggs and mix thoroughly until smooth. From this mass, separate the teaspoon balls (diameter 2.5-3 cm) and densely roll them in rice flour, then let them lie down. Fry balls in sunflower oil in a saucepan. Serve potatoes and serve them together with horseradish sauce.

Table horseradish preparation

Roots thoroughly washed in cold water, it is good to clean the outer rough surface from lesions and darkenings (lightly scrape off) and rub the woody elastic root on a small grater.
  To the received weight to add a little salt, twice-three times more than a granulated sugar, 1-2 tea, spoons lemon peel   in powder and as a "solvent" depending on the purpose and taste - cold boiled water, acidified with lemon juice, or 2% solution of flavored vinegar, or beet juice with lemon or citric acid, or sour cream. It is possible to dissolve horseradish also with melted butter, fish and meat broth. After this, it is necessary to give horseradish at least 30-40 minutes at least, after which it is ready for use.
  Dissolve, insist and store horseradish can only be carefully closed glassware, otherwise his whole "spirit" or, as they say, all his "anger" will evaporate. All solvents should only be cold. Fill horseradish hot water, as suggested in some cookbooks, can not. The solvent by volume should slightly exceed the mass of grated horseradish. Table horseradish can be used not only as an independent seasoning, but also as a basis for the preparation of various sauces. Roots of horse-radish can also be dried. But it should be done very carefully and as quickly as possible so that the horse-radish does not run out. The main thing is, before this you can not wet the horseradish so that he does not get excess water.
  Finely-cut dried roots must be wiped off in a porcelain mortar and stored in a dry, hermetically sealed container, in a dry place. It is enough to dilute such a powder in acidified lemon water to instantly get a table horseradish (even without additional infusion).

Mustard preparation recipes:

1. Mustard Spicy (from 100 g of mustard powder, 4 tablespoons of vinegar, 2 tablespoons powdered sugar, 1.5 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon cloves, 1/4 nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon salt). Powder of the Sarept mustard must be carefully grinded to a pulverized state, pour boiling water, mix into a thick mass, pour 2 cups hot water   and insist for 20-24 hours. Then gently drain excess water, and add salt, sugar, vegetable oil, weak grape or berry vinegar (2-3%), a little cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg to the remaining thick. All the good stir to the desired consistency, give a stand up another Zch. and then store in a tightly closed container. Spices in general should be 10-15% of the weight of used mustard powder, vinegar - 40%. Oil is best olive.

2.   Mustard on apple sauce   (from 3 tablespoons mustard powder, 4 tablespoons apple sauce, 2.5 tablespoons sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, 2-3% vinegar boiled with cloves, anise, basil, badan). Antonov or wild, sour apples bake, cook mashed potatoes (without skin and films), mix with mustard powder and sugar, grind, dilute with vinegar, salt. Put on for 3 days for aging, after which the mustard is ready for use.

"Olive oil" Pour sunflower oil in a dry, pre-warmed pan, with a layer of no more than 1.5-2 centimeters, and recoel over low heat, not bringing to a boil. During the curing, when the oil is already warm, pour 1 teaspoon of anise. After the oil has turned white, drain it and cool it. The resulting oil will not have the smell of sunflower, it will acquire the aroma of real French olive oil. It can be used in salads, fish sauces.

Gascoil oil   (15 cloves of garlic, 4 tablespoons of pork lard or beef fat). Put the garlic in boiling salted water for 1 minute, fold it over a sieve, crush it with lard, add salt. Serve with beans, mushroom, vegetable (eggplant) dishes.

Pesta   (1/4 or 1/2 head of garlic, 60 g of butter (or olive), 6 sprigs of fresh basil or 1-1 / 2 teaspoons of basil, 2 tablespoons of grated cheese). Garlic crush in a mortar, add basil, stir, add butter   and cheese and stir well until smooth. Serve with pasta and soup.

Lozizhan (from 400 g of garlic, 100 g of sunflower oil, 20 g of red ground pepper or 25 g of black). Garlic crush. Oil overheat, remove from heat, cool slightly, add crushed garlic and, stirring frequently, cool to room temperature, then add pepper. Store in a glass tightly closed container. Add as a seasoning to flour dishes, soups.

Preparation of vanilla syrup:   1/2 bag of vanillin (standard) is bred in 10 grams of alcohol or 25 grams of vodka. Then 200 grams of sugar is bred in 1/2 cup of water and brought to a boil, turning into a syrup. When the syrup cools down, an alcohol solution of vanillin is added to it. This syrup is used as needed.

Notes   (numbers in brackets)

1   - Spices culinary specialists call a set of the most popular spices (red and black pepper, cloves, cinnamon, bay leaves) and seasonings (salt, sugar, vinegar and table mustard). Spices - a purely domestic concept. It unites completely heterogeneous products on the grounds that all of them, to some extent, most often serve for savoring food (Note Auth.).

2   - I must say that a set of the most exquisite spices was a special ointment, known as the "fragrant sacred world", which smeared during the coronation the face and hands of kings, kings, emperors and other so-called "anointed of God." The composition of this ointment initially included more than 50, and since 1853 - 30 spices, forming such a strong and persistent aroma that it persisted for years and even decades. Located in Moscow in the Armory Chamber of the Kremlin, an empty silver vessel, in which formerly stored, the world still produces a pleasant aroma, although the last time this vessel was filled with peace in 1894 (Note Auth.)

3   - In comparison with Western Europe in Russia, which lies halfway from Asia to Europe, the prices for running spices were relatively low. In Moscow at the end of the XVI - beginning of the XVII century, a kilogram of black pepper cost about 25 rubles (in terms of modern money), and a kilo of ginger 40 rubles, while a kilogram of cardamom cost 185 rubles, and a kilogram of saffron 600 rubles (Note: ).

4 - At the same time, in the East, where home cooking still occupies a dominant position, spices are not driven out of general use. The fact is that most of the foods containing spices require that they be eaten immediately, immediately after cooking. Any storage or re-heating of such dishes is unacceptable, because the whole "spirit", the aroma of spices is lost at the same time. That is why in the East even "public catering" adapts in its forms to the peculiarities of cooking with spices! This is usually a small brazier, located in the bazaars or directly on the streets, where food is prepared in the presence of the client and exactly in the quantity that is ordered in each specific case (Note Auth.).

5   - To this end, the following methods are used: if the meat or fish have an extraneous smell, they are well washed in cold water before being flavored with spices, and the weathered parts must be cut off. In addition, meat can be preliminarily put in water, sprinkled with mint, garlic, onions, hold in it for 30 minutes to 2 hours, and then cut and cook with other spices. The smell of fish is "harder to fix" more difficult. If it is not spoiled, but only has an extraneous smell (oil, silt), then it can be rubbed with horseradish or onions, as well as black pepper and dill, to lie down for about 20 minutes, and then rinsed and cooked, and during cooking again to use spices depending on the recipe and the type of dish.

6 - To do this, you must first neutralize, discard the old scent, and then give a new smell with the help of other spices. It requires the skillful handling of spices, the alternate use of various mixtures.

7   - This effect of spices, unfortunately, is little known even very experienced culinary experts, And meanwhile spices soften meat, give elasticity to weak, flabby, little-fat muscles, make them digestible. They inhibit the rapid digestion of fish and at the same time contribute to reducing the boiling and boiling times. All this allows you to better preserve vitamins and other useful material   in food prepared on spices.

8   - To store spices, except for mixtures, of course, it is better in undivided and unmilled form, as they are less exhausted. Similarly, it is best to purchase classical spices in a general form.

Based on the materials of the book by William Vasilyevich Pokhlebkin
  "All about spices. «