Flavorings Category

This is a spice mixture used for stews, soups and meat rubs. A version is also used in coffee.

This is similar to peanut butter, only it's made with roasted hazelnuts.

This is used as a filling in candies and baked goods. Look for it in specialty shops or Middle Eastern markets.

Hemp seeds are a terrific source of protein and other nutrients. Hemp devotees claim that the seeds are as versatile as soybeans, and that they can be made into oil, milk, tofu, and many other goods. Look for the seeds (shelled of their hard green husks) in health foods stores.

Herb vinegars are a convenient way to preserve fresh herbs and to incorporate their flavor into salad dressings, marinades, and sauces. They're easy to make at home. Just put one or two sprigs of clean, fresh herbs in a bottle of warm vinegar, tightly seal the bottle, and let it stand for at least a few days. The sprigs will eventually become bitter, so remove or replace them after a few weeks. Make sure that the vinegar you use has an acidity level of at least 5% (this information is given on the label). Wine, rice, or cider vinegars are good bases for most herb vinegars. Don't add too many herbs to the bottle, or you may reduce the acidity of the vinegar so much that it loses its ability to preserve.

Dried is an acceptable substitute for fresh.

This is a sweet and garlicky bean sauce that's often used as a dipping sauce. Available in Asian markets and in many large supermarkets.

These heart-shaped leaves impart a root beer flavor to dishes, and they're great for wrapping tamales and other foods. They're hard to find; your best bet is a Hispanic market.

You can cheat and buy this in cans, but the tinny flavor will rat you out. To make your own: See the recipes for Hollandaise Sauce, Hollandaise Sauce--Microwave or Quickie Hollandaise Sauce posted on RecipeSource.com.

This has jagged leaves. It's fairly pungent, so it's rarely eaten raw.

This is a thick liquid sweetener that's produced by bees from the nectar of flowers. There are over 300 kinds of honey, most of them named after the principal nectar source (e.g., clover honey, eucalyptus honey). These varieties range in color from almost white to amber to dark brown. As a rule of thumb, the lighter the color of the honey, the milder the flavor. You shouldn't feed honey to babies younger than one year--it could cause infant botulism. Store honey in a cool, dark place, where it will keep almost indefinitely. If the honey crystallizes, heat it briefly in a pan of hot water or in the microwave. Because the production of honey exploits bees, many vegetarians and vegans refuse to eat it. Popular varieties: Alfalfa honey is a very popular light and mild honey, great for baking or table use. Basswood honey is light in color, but it has a fairly strong flavor. Buckwheat honey is very dark and bold-flavored, so it's not well suited to baking. Clover honey is America's most popular honey, very mild and fine-flavored. Eucalyptus honey, popular in Australia, has a somewhat bold and slightly medicinal flavor. Orange blossom honey is an excellent, mild honey with a delicate flowery flavor. Sage honey is almost white in color, with a mild flavor. Tulip poplar honey is dark, yet mild-tasting. Tupelo honey is highly prized for its distinctive mild flavor; it's also relatively expensive. Wildflower honey has a fairly strong flavor.

This pungent condiment goes well with meats and fish, and it’s a key ingredient in cocktail sauce. It’s best to buy horseradish in small amounts and store it in the refrigerator—it turns dark and loses much of its bite after a few months. Look for it in the deli case. Varieties: The most common is white horseradish, which is made with vinegar. Creamed horseradish = cream-style horseradish has a little mayonnaise and/or sour cream added; horseradish sauce has a lot. Red horseradish = beet horseradish is made with beet juice.

You need only add boiling water to this powdered mix and stir to make hot chocolate.

Three well-known brands are Tabasco sauce, Louisiana hot sauce, and the thicker Pickapeppa sauce.

This Mexican vegetable looks like a long, skinny broccoli stick. Mexican cooks dip them in batter and deep-fat fry them.

This Hawaiian condiment is made with soy sauce, brown sugar, ginger juice, and other ingredients. It's used to flavor meats.

Hummus is a creamy butter made from chickpeas, tahini, lemon juice and other spices. It is good as a spread on bread or crackers.

See the Hunan Blended Spices posting on RecipeSource.com.

The leaves and small blue flowers of this plant are used as a garnish or to impart a mild, slightly bitter flavor to salads, soups, and liqueurs. Don't waste your time drying the leaves--they'll lose almost all of their flavor.

Dried leaves are very good substitutes for fresh. Don't confuse these with Indonesian bay leaves.

This is used by commercial bakers to keep baked goods moist or by candy makers to make more finely grained candies. Look for it in candy making supply shops.

This is a variety of table salt. Iodized salt, which contains the flavorless additive potassium iodide to prevent goiter (an enlargement of the thyroid gland)

This is the best parsley to use for cooking--it has more flavor than the more common curly parsley. Avoid dried parsley; it has very little flavor.

Jackfruits are immense and some contain hundreds of nutritious seeds, which resemble chestnuts. Before eating the seeds, boil them for about five minutes, then roast them.

This is a tan, unrefined sugar that is common in India. It's made from the sap of palm trees or sugar cane and is much more flavorful than granulated sugar. It's often sold in solid cakes, but it should crumble when you squeeze it. Look for it in Indian markets.

These are small colored rods used to decorate cakes and cookies.

This is a grape variety that produces a fragrant, fresh-tasting white wine that's great with ham, sausages, smoked fish, shellfish, or spicy Asian food. It's the grape that's used to make excellent Rhine wines in Germany. Don't confuse these excellent wines with domestic Riesling wines, which are usually made with inferior cousins of the Johanissberg Riesling grape. Late harvest Johannisberg Rieslings are very sweet, and make excellent dessert wines.

This dark blue spice is used to make gin, and to flavor game and sauerkraut. Crush the berries before using.

This is an Indonesian peanut sauce.

A kaffir lime leaf look as if two glossy, dark green leaves were joined together end to end, forming a figure-eight pattern. Most Thai recipes count each double leaf as two separate leaves. Frozen kaffir lime leaves are a good substitute for fresh. Dried leaves are much less flavorful, so use twice as many as the recipe calls for if you're substituting them for fresh leaves.

This mild Kashmiri chili powder is used in Indian cooking to add flavor and color.

This thick, dark sauce is the Indonesian ancester of ketchup. Look for it in Indonesian markets.

Ketchup is a common condiment especially in America. It is made with tomatoes, sugar, vinegar and spices.

This concentrated oil is made from male pandanus (screwpine) flowers, and it's used to flavor meats, desserts, and beverages in India and Southeast Asia. Look for tiny bottles of it in Indian and Asian markets. Don't confuse it with kewra water, which isn't nearly as potent

This is an extract that's distilled from pandanus flowers, and used to flavor meats, drinks, and desserts in India and Southeast Asia. Some brands of kewra water are artificially flavored, so check the label.

Freshly squeezed lime juice is vastly superior to what you'll find in bottles. Key limes and bottled key lime juice are widely available in the Southeast, and in specialty markets elsewhere. Liquor stores sometimes carry Rose's lime juice, which is sweetened key lime juice.

Khmeli suneli is a traditional Georgian spice mix. It usually contains some combination of coriander, basil, celery seed, parsley, fenugreek, summer savory, mint, bay leaves, dill, cloves and parsley. Khmeli suneli is used to flavor sauces and stews.

Indians use this to make desserts and drinks.

This colorless cherry brandy is made primarily in Germany. French kirsch isn't quite as dry.

This salt was developed for the preparation of kosher meats, but many cooks prefer it over table salt. It has coarser grains, so it's easier to use if you, like professional chefs, toss salt into pots with your fingers, measuring by touch. Most kosher salt is also flaked, giving each grain a larger surface area. This helps the salt adhere better, so it's great for lining margarita glasses, and for making a salt crust on meats or fish. Kosher salt also is preferred over table salt for canning and pickling. Like pickling salt, kosher salt is free of iodine, which can react adversely with certain foods. Some brands of kosher salt contain yellow prussiate of soda, an anti-caking agent, but unlike the anti-caking additive in table salt, it doesn't cloud pickling liquids. The only drawback to using kosher salt for pickling or canning is that the grains are coarser and flakier, and can't be packed as tightly into a measuring cup as pickling salt. This raises the risk that the salt won't be properly measured. To get around this problem, measure by weight instead of volume. With its large grains, kosher salt isn't a good choice for baking. Look for boxes of it in the spice section of your supermarket.

This is wine that's been made in accordance with Rabbinical law. Most people think of them as syrupy-sweet screw-top wines made with Concord grapes, but some kosher wines are now being produced that are indistinguishable from quality non-kosher wines. Unless pasteurized, a wine can only remain kosher if it's poured by an observant Jew. Bottles of pasteurized wine sport the label "mevushal."