What's the spice you use most?
...Other than salt and pepper
For me it's cumin. It's one of the few spices I buy in bulk and actually use up my supply.
In the winter it may lean towards cardamom thanks to copious amounts of chia.
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Paprika
Paprika is the ultimate understudy of black pepper
Feel kinda bad for white pepper for coming third in a two horse race
Spursy, even
white pepper has its use. I've got black, white, cayenne, red flakes, and dried arbol (before we get into my selection of peppers for chili or salsa). I mostly fiddle around with them for whichever mood i'm in when i'm making tomato bisque (always uses two peppers) or red pasta sauce (always uses 3 peppers), but our lemon butter sauce explicitly calls for white pepper because it disappears into the butter.
I buy it at Costco because it is an instant win button on frozen fish, and about any other meat.
Heck, I just threw some into Mac and cheese
Yeah, paprika is my go-to.
It has nothing to do with it being the "third shaker" child of Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper in Blue's Clues
i love frying up some frozen corn in butter, paprika, garlic, and a little salt
Yes, I agree. But what kind of Paprika is your favorite?
The only two kinds i know are smoked and unsmoked.
I use unsmoked for chicken/veggies and only really use the smoked if I run out lol
I'm a Hungarian Hot Smoked (sweet) Paprika user.
But there is Hungarian Cold Smoked, and Spanish Hot ( and Cold) Smoked Paprika. Of course, there is also generic "paprika" that might be "hot," or "cold," or even smoked or not.
Paprika gets complicated when you go down the rabbit hole.
Garlic by far. Salt, Pepper, Garlic.
After that I use quite a bit of cumin
Is... garlic a spice?
Sure, why not
I'm convinced!
For me it is part of the base meal: smash and dice garlic, turn on the stovetop, dice an onion and start it frying, add garlic, figure out what else to put in the pan.
okay you're the fifth person i've met besides me who (if we're not at the grill) cooks like that my wife wants to know if you'd like to marry us. that way we'd only each have to cook twice a week except saturday when we all cook.
I've tagged you (with love) "onions and garlic!"
i like to joke around about tagging, but is there a way to really do it? because that's a great tag for me
Lemmy does support tagging I believe (at least my browser does). For Summit, you long press a user's name and one of the options should be to add a tag.
Oh, I didn't think of that. It depends on the server. I don't think lemmy servers support tagging, but piefed servers do. Such tags are only displayed to the person making the tag. Piefed servers have issues with displaying post text from the main display and with previewing comments directly under a post, but they display image posts inline ... in a buggy kinda way.
If I'm looking for news, I use my lemmy account. If I'm looking for tv/movie stuff, I use piefed ... and also get to tag people :-)
i am hearing better and better things about piefed, but there are people here i like. maybe i'll have to split time like you.
Roasted garlic is good just plain. It makes a pretty good side dish.
I'll be honest though, I'll just eat it raw sometimes. I think something is broken with me. I can eat raw garlic and can happily just bite into an onion like an apple (though I can't eat the whole thing).
I'm guessing that's a genetic thing -- like how some people are 'super-tasters' that can't stand broccoli, I think some people can handle it better than others. For myself, I'd guess I only have 1/2 the trait because I love it roasted, but can't take too much raw.
Maybe they mean garlic powder?
Garlic and cumin. So versatile. Same for me. So many dishes from salsa to refried beans and salads. Gotta have garlic. Infinite possibilities.
Basically almost everything I cook has these in there with salt & pepper. Even if I'm using onion and garlic in the recipe.
Capsaicin
op getting ready to cook some.
My house we eat a lot of spicy food. I refuse anything with capsaicin extract, I think it's cheating and flavorless. We had a bottle of capsaicin extract on the spice rack for six years, I finally threw it out a few months ago. It was only cracked open once, because.. well, one drunken night forever ago some fellas decided to try it..
My local Asian market sells powdered sriracha sauce. If you get this in your kitchen, everything you cook will be sweet, sour, spicy, and red for about a week before it's gone. It's fucking good.
I like shichimi togarashi, myself. It's got seaweed flakes, sesame seeds, and roasted orange peel, plus the peppers. It's really good on rice, pasta, and ramen.
It’s also pretty good on popcorn! Love me some togarashi.
i got me some berbere spice for my popcorn. it's wonderfully earthy i love it.
Probably paprika
Paprika then garlic powder then black garlic salt/pepper.
Some top ones for me: MSG, Chicken Bouillon, Smoked Paprika, Thyme, Garlic powder, and finally, controversially, bay leaves.
MSG goes in basically anything. If it gets salt and pepper it's probably also getting MSG for me. I do a lot of chicken, and whenever I do I'm almost always adding some chicken bouillon to add some flavor to it. I really love Thyme, and find myself just adding it somewhat randomly to things. Smoked Paprika is a perfect flavor that's so unique, I add it to anything I want to have a bit of a kick, like chili, ect. Not that it's like spicy or anything, just it adds a little something to those dishes that you can't really get elsewhere. Garlic powder is an all around great utility, and I tend to "dump" this stuff on things.
Last but not least, Bay leaves. I swear, I'm like the #1 consumer of these things. I throw them in anything. Anything savory with a decent sauce/soupy base is PERFECT to add a bay leaf to. If you use em often you can really taste the difference, since fresh bay leaves really pack a punch in flavor.
People sleep on bay leaves. You really can taste the difference. The experiment I did was to make the standard Kraft blue box mac and cheese, but I added bay. Since I know mac and cheese the bay flavor stood out. It's just an herb flavor and I use it in any liquid that I'm also using any other herb.
you really need (reasonably) fresh bay leaves tho. They lose flavor fast. If they're (Reasonably) fresh you can smell what it tastes like.
i was going to say, they can't be too fresh. we've got some laurel trees in our yard and we made that mistake. once.
The dried bay leaves are pointless. You can freeze them though. I keep mine in the freezer.
I buy dry in bulk so it ends up being maybe $0.38 for 100 or so. I put 4-7 in most any soup, stew or the like.
What do you use MSG for? You really use it in everything?
Yeah! It's like salt but for savory things. There's a pretty good chance that if I'm cooking with salt and pepper, I'm making something savory, and in those cases MSG improves the flavor of it basically always.
For example: I frequently air fry broccoli. As a base, I toss it in olive oil, salt, pepper, and MSG. If I want it spicy, I'll add red pepper flakes. Sometimes I substitute salt for season salt for a different vibe. Other times I add garlic powder, or make a balsamic glaze for them. No matter what it's prolly gonna have salt, pepper, and MSG.
It also goes really well on meat in general. Some cuts of beef don't really need it cause they're super savory to begin with, but especially some of the cheaper cuts that aren't as flavorful.
Another big one is chicken breast. Thighs have more flavor, but when it comes to texture, I like the chicken breast meat better, so in order to boost that savory chicken flavor, I'll add MSG.
It's really hard to describe it, MSG is literally just like, pure savory. It's not quite a salt replacement, tho i could see someone calling it salty, but it really boosts that savory/umami flavor.
Honestly the only time I don't add pure MSG is when I'm cooking with things that have it included already. A lot of asian food has MSG in ingredients like fish sauce and oyster sauce, it's totally possible to boost the MSG content of a dish without sprinkling msg onto it.
Complete seasoning is one of my favorites and it has msg
"Controversially bay leaves" has me dying
I also add bay leaves to everything. I found my local co op has them in the bull spice section, they are so freaking fresh.
people say they dont taste like anything so its a bit of a controversial subject.
Theres a huge conspiracy post from years ago about them that had me dying laughing when someone shared it with me, so here for you and anyone who many not have read it.
https://medium.com/the-awl/the-vast-bay-leaf-conspiracy-f9903ddbb520
Amazing, thank you for sharing that
nah i'm with you a soup without laurel is not a soup, it's bathwater
Smoked paprika
The bestest! Love that stuff!
Onion/garlic powder. In roughly equal quantities.
Here's a secret for garlic powder - add just enough drops of water to hydrate it then toss it in the microwave until it bubbles. You'll turn your garlic powder into *hot* (like spicy) garlic. I'll add butter too when I microwave it and leave it in there until the water boils away to make the best garlic bread.
would toasting the garlic powder have the same effect?
No, it needs water to do its thing.
huh. now i want to do a sidebyside of toasted, waternuked, and plain, and each combination of all three, then mixed into some butter and made some garlic bread with. also oilnuked, because i want to see.
also curious if it needs to be in a microwave or if a small pot on the stove would work for large quantities
I heard it had something to do with oxygenating somethingsomething foodscience whatever. Give it a shot and let me know. Science aside, I know it makes damn good garlic bread. I like to toss in 10ml of minced garlic and freeze dried parsley after it is microwaved. Then I stir it up and spread a thick layer on the bread. It comes out just like the best garlic bread from a restaurant.
it sounds like i've got some prep to do for date night. good homemade pasta (i just got my hands on some passata, i've been looking for it for a month) and this garlic bread, with some nice roasted veg and a fresh caesar salad. then fat dogging for a couple days. sounds wonderful.
i've been looking potentially into combining garlic bread with the pioneer woman's The Bread, which basically a loaf of heart attack. its just a big loaf cut in half, buttered as fuck and then tossed under the broiler until the butter browns. maybe toss on some mizithra as it's cooling so it melts a touch, get that brown butter/mizithra flavor instead of garlic? I dunno, i feel like i want to take the recipe and make it my own.
Melange of course. Really gives you that baked in sand worm flavor without having to catch one.
Fun fact: before it became mass produced sugar was originally considered a spice
A recent cookbook I was using seemed to use sugar as a spice. It was used only in small quantities.
A little bit can go a long way in most dishes. You get used to sweet though and soon you demand more and more.
I planted herbs all around my house, so I always have fresh herbs available. But I almost always end up using thyme, occasionally rosemary.
People here keep saying garlic, which I also use extensively but I don't think of it as a spice.
I don't think garlic is a spice until the moment it's dried and ground. Then maybe it's a spice. Fresh garlic, I agree isnt a spice it's.. what is garlic a vegetable?
What the hell is garlic?
I never use it dried, probably why I don't think of it as a spice :) In Danish, garlic is called 'white onion' so I probably mentally classify it as belonging to that family, which it also does belong to botanically.
I agree to this, at least, my mind works the same. They are root vegetables when they are fresh.
Garlic powder and onion powder, sure could be spice, they are afterall, in the spice section. Onion, garlic found in produce.
an herb, which are often spices.
Is garlic a spice or an ingredient? I use a lot of fucking garlic.
For spice i love paprika
I think in culinary terms garlic is most often used as a spice. Garlic powder would firmly fit the definition but might get more murky if you made a garlic dish (for example roasted garlic and potatoes).
I gotta say I also use to hell out of some garlic. If the recipe calls for like 1 clove I'm gonna be like I think you mean 5.
yeah i'm eating toum right now and it's both
Hondashi
Gochujang, laoganma
Ginger, soy sauce, roasted sesame, white pepper
I think you know what kinds of food I really like
I wish I could get fresher jars of that stuff. It definitely has a shelf life. I tried several of the made-in-the-usa varieties and they all suck. Looking at you, J Kenji Lopez Alt's momofuku chili crunch. Trash. It has no msg or fried soybeans in it!
I want to try out David Chang's crispy chili. How do you think that compares?
LGM is my fav. I get a new jar about once a month at this point. But I keep it in the fridge after I buy it
My problem with LGM is there is no date on the jar. I don't know when it was made or when it will go bad. So it could have sat on a store shelf for years and taste like rancid cardboard when I first open it.
Garlic or Onion. Both are universally used in recipes going back hundreds of years.
But those are vegetables that have a flavor rather than spices. I mean: Brussle Sprouts and Asparagus both have unique flavors, too, but I wouldn't count them as "spices", either.
I love using turmeric. You'd be srprised how well it pairs with so many things, plus it's very healthy. It goes naturally with a lot of middle eastern and south asian food, but you can also add it to sauces and soups for warm and earthy notes (if that's your thing like me).
As for spice mixes, I love Cadaver's greek seasoning. It's pretty simple (salt, pepper, organo, with a few others) and you can enhance pretty much anything with it
Cavender's Greek Seasoning. Do NOT use Greek cadavers in your food.
Autocorrect lol. I indeed meant "Cavender's"
My stainless steel sink hates when I cook with tumeric. Still do occasionally.
Cumin, coriander, and especially sumac. Sumac is SO good.
Oh yeah. Kinda hard to find sometimes.
What does sumac taste like?
a little sour. sprinkling it on your kebabs is the only way i know how to use it but it Elevates the kebabs
It goes well with avocado on toast
Does it have any use in vegetarian kitchen?
Fantastic on falafel and pretty much anything you'd add lemon juice to.
broadening your mind about kebab?
Sage. Always from Penzey's.
I once accidentally dumped too much sage into a sauce. It tasted so good that I kept doing it.
Penzey’s is the shit. They’re awesome.
Mustard
Wet or dry?
I use both.
Interesting. Maybe I'm just using no where near enough of it. I rarely every use mustard.
Mustard can sometimes be the perfect ingredient on the side, or part of a sauce. There are a lot of different mustards, but the one I use the most is classic Dijon.
Does bouillon count? I tend to use that in place of salt (I think salt is boring) so it goes in almost everything. Other than that, it’s a tie between black pepper, garlic, and onion powder. I don’t use that much in spices actually lol rather use the whole ingredient.
I have four that I use for everything equally so I’m going to consider them as a single seasoning, like Mrs. Dash. Onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, and cayenne. I put that mix in anything I cook.
Pretty similar for me except I swap the regular paprika for smoked paprika. Maybe a tad less versatile, but thhr smoke flavor works in most of the things I cook most frequently.
Freeze dried garlic, by far.
Propably even tops pepper and occassionally also salt.
Oh that's interesting. Is it powder?
Not quite powder, more like tiny, porous granules.
wait you mean there's a garlic (besides elephant garlic) i haven't had?
Sheila cancel my 11:30
Thyme. Not that often, but whenever I use it, I use loads.
You can never have too much thyme. \runs
/runs
This is a linux shop buddy. I got my eye on you.
Cumin here too, followed by Berebere mix which is the one I buy in bulk, keep the bag in the freezer. I don't buy the cumin in bulk because it's cheap in stores here.
Unless you are counting onion & garlic, but those almost always fresh and I'd call them veg more than spice.
Garlic, sumac, coriander, paprika, rosemary, chaat, turmeric.
i need some education i thought chaat was something else and the googles aren't helping. the closest i'm finding is a chaat masala powder. got a link?
That. It's main flavor component is black salt, which is high in sulfur. It's delicious. Here's this too.
you have any premade mixes you recommend (i got an indian spice store one town over that's just in battery range on my bike) or is homemade that much better?
I like the Shaan brand personally if I'm not gonna home mix. But doing it yourself is massively rewarding. Plus if you get enough of each ingredient that goes into a blend, you have the capacity to make more of that particular blend or other combinations altogether.
yeah, i have a pretty deep spice cabinet (three different cabinet shelves, two drawers of my private reserve, and a 3L bucket of dried peppers in the pantry and that's just the dry shit, not counting the oils, vinegars, or mustards and hot sauces in the fridge) but that looked like at least 50 bucks to buy everything I'm lacking, or like 5 bucks for a mix to get started and see how much i like it. that being said, we eat a shitton of popcorn and all those different salts...
i feel it's kind of like BBQ rubs. the stuff you get in the store is good, but the stuff you make yourself is great. (i've been doing a lot of central texas style BBQ lately)
Hell yes, that's a way to live right there. My favorite blend to put on popcorn is to add curry powder, Greek seasoning blend, and Cajun or Creole blend altogether. It's perfect.
i've been working my way through my greek fry mix (1 part black pepper, 2 parts kosher salt, 2 parts garlic powder, 4 parts dried oregano, add feta after cooking if you want) and berbere spice (bought it from the good spice store in Berkeley) on my popcorns. also churrocorn has been delightful (equal parts brown sugar and butter plus 1/2t-1t i really don't measure that closely cinnamon, mix that in, salt as regular). i would be unsurprised if whatever grave marker i get includes an air popper as i currently have 3 (only one is broken and i aim to fix it) and a whirly pop. in short, movie night is at my place.
Tarragon. My favorite. Notable runners up cardamom, oregano, basil, herbs de Provence. Curry definitely, but technically that's a mixture of spices.
I'm not including salt or garlic salt, which would absolutely dwarf all others.
You are my spice hero! Perfect list. My only note is that Herbs de Provence is also a mix, just like curries.
Oh you're right, I messed that up. Oops.
Garlic (usually the refrigerated kind from a jar) and cumin. Dried onion can be acceptable if you don't have time to chop an onion. Coarse ground black pepper has a distinctly different flavor than the kind that goes on the table. Crushed red pepper flakes really help revive leftover Italian, Mexican, and Thai food. And it's situational, but I am really starting to like Aleppo pepper quite a bit.
😭
Life is too short for jarlic!!
Life is too short to waste time cleaning a garlic press.
I use way too much garlic to bother with a press. Just chop it. It's faster, easier to clean and you can more easily vary the size of the garlic bits.
Here here!
Don't use a press -- just smash with a big knife, pull off the paper, and chop a little. Jarred doesn't taste the same. Jar-garlic is why I won't buy Costco's garlic 'wings' yet will buy the Rotisserie chicken right next to it: the 'wings' have an enormous excess of garlic, but it all tastes like 'jar' and only faintly like garlic.
Apparently my palate is not so refined. I can definitely tell that one is better than the other, but only slightly.
I've heard this a lot actually. Maybe it's like the cilantro thing. Some people taste it differently.
It's a huge difference for me. Night and day. Garlic and.....sour memories of garlic.
Interesting. You might be right. The whole "does x taste the same to me as it does to you" question is fascinating, and I hadn't thought about it here. For me, jarred garlic lacks a bit of the bite and spice of fresh garlic, and tends to be weaker after cooking, but I don't associate it with any sour flavor. Basically, it's "rounded-off" garlic to me.
Now I'm curious how you experience powdered garlic. That tastes even less strong to me than jarred, and maybe slightly processed, but I wonder if that has a stronger effect on your palate.
I love garlic powder. No weird tastes for me there. But it doesn't ever, ever replace fresh garlic where fresh garlic is called for.
It's kind of like dill pickle chip powder and dill pickles. Both great, very different uses!
i use around 3 cloves a day. sometimes more, sometimes less. jarlic for daily use, bulbs for special occasions. i got things to do
Yeah, I'd definitely prefer to use fresh garlic, no doubt. But...take this morning. I put a pork shoulder in the crock pot for carnitas at dinner. I chopped the onion and the jalapeno. Chopping the garlic, too, would've practically doubled my prep time, because it needs so much of it, and I was already late for work as it was.
It's not that serious!
To our patron saint Anthony Bourdain it was!
Paprika I've found to be pretty key for anything chicken.
But I use MSG for basically everything now.
MSG-sus saves all.
im not the cook of the family and failing at flavoring is my main failing so I asked my wife and she says onion powder or minced onion with garlic not far behind.
Smoked paprika, I have both spicy and sweet. Spicy goes so well with hash browns and baked potatoes
Probably garlic
Cumin, thyme and garlic powder for me.
Coriander, is my favorite, though I like cumin too. Paprika (Against what seems to be popular I don't care for the smoked stuff just plain), and I also love cardamom! I add a bit to every sweet I make just about. I really like getting a nice good quality chocolate bar and chopping it for chocolate chip cookies. Cardamom goes really well in these cookies imo. Love it
I also have hatch green chili pepper, aleppo pepper, oregano I grow myself and I use it a lot.
Cocoa and cardamom go so well together. There's even a high end chocolate shop named that in Houston. $5 per truffle and absolutely worth it. Your legs melt out from under you as you taste it.
Oh I bet! Glad to hear the chocolate/cardamom marriage is celebrated outside my own self. It truly is devine
My favorites are crushed dried chilis, smoked parika, cumin and nutmeg. I often use vegetable bouillon as a spice as well.
Cayenne pepper, and a lot of it. Curry is next
Coriander in every dish along with salt and pepper. People just don't realize how much it adds to food. Garlic and onion powder in 95% of the dishes
Grind it fresh. It's soooo much better
Yeah, that's what I do. I have it in a pepper grinder.
I don't know exactly what counts as spice ? I use a bit of shoyu (japanese name of fermented soy sauce) for broths and the like. Beer yeast for salads. A selection of chilis from Mada or Sénégal for some pleasant hotness. Curcuma grows everywhere around here so it's also a staple. Same for ginger, and the wild variant "tsingiziou masera" -although I have been buying east african ginger recently because it's cheaper.
Green pepper seeds from northern Mada, they're not hot at all, just pleasantly crunchy and savoury.
When I get nostalgic of Provence I cook with garlic, olive oil and parsley (for seafood) or I use the wild basel that grows here during kashikazi (rainy season) : small leaves, strong taste, a little different from the mediterranean species.
Sounds like some bomb food. I want to eat with you for a while. To help with what they are asking, the meaning of spice below. It sounds like you are using a lot of fresh good healthy food, but little of it is a really a spice. Maybe the turmeric or ginger half counts despite I assume that you are using it fresh. Or likely those green pepper seed.
The rest as veggies, sauces, greens, roots and leaves.
"A spice is a dried, aromatic, or pungent plant product— such as a seed, fruit, root, bark, or rhizome— used to flavor or season food and other products. Examples include pepper, nutmeg, ginger, and cinnamon."
If you're ever in the indian ocean, please drop me a line, we can share good meals. Thanks for providing a better definition. I didn't realize a spice had to be dried, and plant material. Beer yeast doesn't count as a spice then I guess, as it is strictly speaking... a fungus.
Very cool to hear your connections to all of them and how you source them.
I wish I could identify and use most plants like some of the elders (they're not always elders of course) at least for culinary purposes. While they have conserved that empirical knowledge through traditional channels, others have studied on the mainland and now strive to reconnect it with modern, academic classification. An example https://journals.openedition.org/oceanindien/1770 This concerns medicinal uses, but there's considerable overlap between food and medecine where plants are concerned.
Not counting sugar? garlic powder or Cinnamon and vanilla. I use garlic powder to go with salt and pepper in a 7:2:1 ratio as like a base for everything from tuna salad to bean burritos. Thrice a week I make overnight oats with Vanilla extract and cinnamon.
Note my favorite is smoked paprika, I just know fewer recipes and synergistic flavors.
I normally don't think of sugar as a spice but Flavor by Ottolenghi seems to use sugar as a spice.
There is a little sugar in most recipes but not a lot of it
thank you for this cookbook. that sentence alone seems to indicate it follows my cooking philosophy (i got a sweet tooth so i want to save as much of my daily sugars for my candy supply)
Most modern people don't but I feel like that's because there's so much of it in everything. The latest episode of Tasting History goes deep on this.
SPG is a big mover in my cooking, but then garam masala, creole spice are not far behind.
Garlic or onion powder; maybe dill, after that?
Black pepper. Fresh ground black pepper on everything. That and garlic are the only one I use in bulk
Lately I’ve been experimenting with variety so after that I have way too many different choices. My spice cupboard long since overflowed onto my counter and it’s definitely to the point where I need to plan certain cuisines so I use up spices while they’re still relatively fresh
I also cover everything in pepper, recently bought a little battery powered grinder and it’s fantastic
I find myself using more bullion lately. I also have been using a dry smoke seasoning for when I want a more grilled flavor without the grill.
I'm a slut for rosemary and garlic, with paprika being my go-to for more robustly flavored dishes. Herbes de Provence is a nice blend as well, if you like those, but it is on the lighter side. Good for chicken salad and whatnot
Khmeli Suneli (Georgian spice mix, perfect for meat seasoning)
Salt.
Oh... Taco Seasoning.
Nice flex. Which brand?
Whatever is cheapest (though 90℅ of the time, the only option is McCormick).
Those Irish really know their seas on things
Scrolled too much to find salt
a man after my own heart. beef, chicken, pork, or the well-beloved Generic? (when we're not using my personal blend, which is like all the time because it's more expensive, we tend to use Tones but a little doctored)
Probably cinnamon? But I love me some sweet potatoes so it's 90% for that and 10% other baking things.
Chili powder because larger amounts are used at a time. Then smoked paprika, cumin, oregano, cayenne are my goto spices. I buy them in bulk.
This probably is gonna give away more info about me than it should (iykyk)
Hatch Green Chili powder. I put a little bit of that stuff in and near everything, except in chili season, where I use fire roasted fresh green chilies instead.
Edit: Autocorrect for->fire
I don't know but I dig it
Green chili is great. I use it as a sauce, never seen it available as a powder where I live.
I buy an ounce (about 30 grams) from the farmers market in town once a year. It lasts me through the year.
You can make your own if you start with fresh green chilies and dry them thoroughly, then run them through a spice mill.
cardamom is exotic in coffee. Rosemary and potatos just work.
I love cumin. I use it way more than anyone else i know.
Been buying it in bulk for years because it just such a good savoury option.
I love cumin but my bf hates it, so I only use it in small amounts with a lot of other seasonings.
Caraway/cumin, thyme, wild garlic and lovage (which happens to be a surprisingly close translation of the name in Polish). The first two are really helpful in pods based kitchen. Lovage has a bit of a MSG effect, brings up umami.
But half of the time I just randomly spray stuff with one of the masalas I got from a local Indian store.
Dried Dill.
In salad dressing, on fish, tossed with vegetables, just about anything.
garlic no question
Probably bay leaves. I make a lot of stock at home. I find you can't really taste bay directly but you notice if it's not there.
I also use a lot of cumin, coriander, and oregano. Various chili powders. Anchor powder is very nice and not too spicy.
Buying a nice mortar and pestle set was one of my best kitchen investments. Fresh ground spices are a game changer.
toasting seeds before grinding them is really nice.
Ground sumac is not widely known in the US, but it adds a tangy freshness. I like it on avocado toast.
It's hard to find sometimes, but I do really like it.
Smoked paprika and Italian seasoning (hopefully doesn’t make me too basic lol)
I have cinnamon in my porridge most every day. But I also have a lentil curry with a lot of curry paste - Yellow, vindaloo, butter chicken, really any curry paste will work I've found - and they're all a blend.
Coriander seeds.
Cumin and the other cumin (what's Kümmel called in English?)
Coriander seeds fucking slap
Probably onion powder or oregano. I use garlic and ginger powder just as often, but in much smaller amounts. You really can't add too much onion.
Cinnamon. Goes in both breakfast and dinner recipes.
Cumin. It's used in quite a lot of cultures in different ways.
Top 5 , In order :
Basicly never use ordinary (salt|pepper) , so boring
Black pepper.
Or if we're going off stuff that isn't a condiment red pepper flakes which I put on tons of stuff or by volume garlic powder
cumin, paprika, onion powder and garlic powder are my heavy hitters
PepperSaltGarlic salt or powder. The salt is usually a blend and often has sugar. I just make my own blend but prefer fresh almost every time.
It's a toss up between smoked paprika and chipotle powder.
Rosemary salt, as I grow my own rosemary. Also got thyme and sage that I will probably add to it.
"Melange" - Spacing Guild Navigator, probably
Penzys frozen pizza topping.
Sea salt. Used on more items.
Pepper. Used in volume.
Italian Sausage Seasoning (from Penzey's, even!). It's part of my pepperoni roll recipe (it goes on the pan the roll cooks on, as well as is brushed on the roll) and really takes things to the next level.
Oh shit, i need to get this. My grocery has been unreliable with stocking ground sausage meat so I’ve been wondering how to turn ground meat into Italian sausage meat
Oregano/thyme
When I cook spicy, I use a lot of my premixed masala, though I don't know the exact composition or ratios, so I guess that would disqualify that. Second would probably be sechuan pepper. I love that shit.
The always underestimated nutmeg.
Chipotle pepper powder. It's like smoked paprika and cayenne rolled into one.
What's a spice vs whats an aromatic?
But based on frequency and amount.
Flavacol.
Based on preferred spice, smoked cumin.
I could be wrong, but my guess is an aromatic is something you cook with, but ultimately remove from the dish. Spices stay in
See i consider onions and garlic as aromatics since they add depth and flavor with a more volatile flavor that is more aroma based.
So like dried chilis? Or bay leaves? They often are removed and not eaten but i would think they are spices.
Onions and garlic are just root vegetables to me, but now that you mention it, yeah I guess I can see what you mean, I knew I didn't have the definition quite right
Here is a fun one.
The idea of a vegetable is a myth.
There is no official category. Some vegetables are fruits, some are roots, some are stems or some leaves. It's a collective term for parts of plants we eat.
So in cooking its usually then based on what purpose or what it adds. Aromatics are aroma and basically cover the alliums (garlic, onion, leek) and spices were basically just dried plant to modify flavor so dried onion is both an aromatic and a spice.
onions are aromatics. you take those out you gotta fight my fork and knife
Oh I misunderstood. Yeah its interesting what is considered a spice in these comments
Yup. Cause its more or less something that amplifies/modifies flavor of the original items, and that can mean a lot of things to a lot of different cooks.
Its also cultural. Food is a really interesting history and up until recently was not so easily shared.
Aromat is MSG I think
Salt? Salt.
Allow me to introduce you to this stuff:
100% pure flavor crystals. Start using this stuff instead of salt, it will change your life for the better.
(it's pure MSG)
Curry (i know i know) or garlic
what do you know ? if there's something important to know about curry I'd like to know as well
Lol just that it is technically a meddly of spices, not one kind
ah, yes. I thought blends counted as spices on their own as well. I don't think we make a distinction in french. Other notable blends we call "spice" include garam masala (India) and ras el hanut (Maghreb), but I don't use those much.
The local variant of garam masala is called "masalé" (Reunion, Mayotte, Mauritius...) and this one I use frequently
Im barely a home cook. Definitely not an authority on spices. Ive always called the mixes a medley or mix though. Different curries taste a bit different because of how the ratios are mixed. I just use whatevrr is cheapest from the store and put it on damn near everything lol (if youve never had curry on a cheese pizza, i highly recommend it)
Yes ! I love trying the different takes on spice blends or tchari (fermented unripe fruit) that every mom does around here, since there's no established market for this kind of thing, everyone's homemade tchari circulates and I get to try many of them. Some are made with lemon, some with mango and some with papaya, some are super hot (you could almost call them chili on their own), some aren't at all... some are watery, some are thick like a soup.
I throw some curry with cheese all the time ! it goes so well. Not specifically on pizza so far, but I will remember to try !
I mean... If that is your explanation of yeah yeah I know... You have some things to learn about curry. It starts shortly with curry is not simply one thing, and it ends with it is a cooking style as much as anything.
Yes, im aware of that too. The question was what spices do you use. Calling curry a single spice [feels] reductive af, while the distinction of the dish and the spice medley is more like orange the fruit and orange the color.
Garlic and thyme. Where thyme is, there is garlic. If there is garlic, most of the thyme there is thyme.
Both herbs, not spices.
I just looked it up and found out there ist a difference, who would have guessed. I'm with you on the thyme part, but since garlic is growing as a root, it should be a spice, or am I missing something?
Since thyme is out I'd like to replace it with cardamom. 2~3 pods per person with every rice dish is amazing.
Cumin
I buy cumin seeds in bulk and grind them as needed.
I also use turmeric and ground mustard a lot too.
Salt by a large margin, but other than that i think it is Rosemary.
Love rosemary with garlic and lemon. I use it on my dry brined turkey under the skin, crushed in quinoa and in herbal bread. So good, definitely my favorite herb.
Sorry basil, I do love you too but it's not close.
ooo I don't use a lot of rosemary, I should. Stew or wellington comes to mind for me.
Oregano, mainly for salads.
paprika and whatever nice spice blends my mom occasionally gets me from pensey. right now my favorites are Justice, Outrage of Love, and Transgender Remember Vanilla Sugar of Love
Marjoram
I just consider it one of the standard Italian spices... I rarely use it on its own.
I also buy in bulk and did not appreciate how light and fluffy it was. I bought a bag on sale from Mt Rose Herbs, it was a long time ago I don't remember how many ounces, but was more than 1, at most 4, and it was huge! I used it all the time. Lots of it, in any dish it could plausibly go in. That was more than a decade ago, maybe 2 now, but I'm still heavy-handed with it and use a lot to this day.. just not as much as I used to.
so we have a jar of marjoram but it's not in any of the recipes i know. what do You use it for?
Most "Italian" spice mixes include marjoram. so unless I'm following a recipe that calls for it I just add it to Italian food.
i will add it to the next red sauce i make (i guess i just decided what i'm having for lunch every day next week, for experiments) and we will see what it does. thank you for the suggestion!
Oregano and comiño
Oh, I never knew the Spanish spelling. Thanks.
Cinnamon, easily, though cumin is a close-ish second. I put cinnamon in my porridge, in chilli and dahl, on beans, over cornflakes, and so much more.
Cinnamon goes great on roasted mushrooms. I really didn't appreciate how savory cinnamon could be before.
I've never roasted mushrooms, but that sounds delicious.
Pepper
Not what I use most, but coco powder is very underrated in savory dishes. Just a little bit can add a lot to many dishes. (the ones I use most have been well covered)
Ooo that's very cool. I know of some savory dishes with a little coffee in them too.
chilies, followed very closely by garlic
Savory: Garlic Powder, Onion Powder on almost everything - sometimes even if I am using fresh versions. Sweet: Cinnamon. However I have about 20 spices that I have in high rotation and another 20 for occasional use. I also keep Chives, Flat Parsley, Oregano, Rosemary, Sage, Thyme & Mojito Mint plants.
cheese
Cheese, yes. It is a spice.
Or a condiment, at least. 🤷♂️
I fully support it
Adobo
Oh my, I remember the day I discovered canned adobo chillies. Blew my mind.
The spice I use most often is Old Spice. whistles
Pu pu pu - pu - pu - pu - power
Penzeys has a couple of blends I really like:
Pie Spice:
https://www.penzeys.com/online-catalog/pie-spice/c-24/p-3079/pd-s
"Hand-mixed from: cinnamon (China, Korintje, Ceylon, Vietnamese), vanilla sugar (sugar, vanilla bean), mace, ginger, nutmeg, anise seed and clove."
Good anywhere you'd use cinnamon, but also surprisingly good on hot, buttered popcorn.
Mural of Flavor:
https://www.penzeys.com/online-catalog/mural-of-flavor/c-24/p-219/pd-s
"Hand-mixed from: spices, shallots, onion, garlic, lemon peel, citric acid, chives and orange peel."
Good on meats, sandwiches, but the surprise to me was adding it to chowders makes it taste like Chicken in a Biscuit crackers.
A few comments have mentioned penzeys. I only now realized that the random picture I grabbed was penzeys. I will have to try their stuff.
They have physical stores here that are great!
It did not format correctly.. : ^ (
Fresh cilantro unless green onion counts.
(What about garlic and onion? Does that count?)