Cinco especias chinas

Rubbed into the fat cap; anethole renders through and the skin goes glassy.

Star anise and cassia both read as roast. They front-run the skin.

Salt-ferment under anise; the red-braise formula needs nothing else.

Caramel and anise, and the blend is what stops the braise being toffee.

Roasted whole with the blend under the skin, so the fat carries it out.

Alcohol extracts anethole from the pod faster than any amount of water.

Tea egg: the blend gets into the cracks and stains the white brown.

Peel bitterness and anise sweetness meet almost exactly in the middle.

Cured or roasted, the blend does what fennel seed does in Italy, louder.

Cassia and clove hold the line while the fruit cooks down to lacquer.

A dry-fried version leans on the spice mix to cover what plain seasoning cannot.

Roasted fat under anise; the pyrazines give the blend somewhere to sit.

Roasted until the sugars go dark, and the anise reads as baked-in fruit.

Anethole plus malic acid; a five-spice tatin is better than it sounds.

Clove and anise lengthen cocoa, and the pepper adds a buzz it never has.

Anise pushes berry esters forward; the clove keeps it out of the sweet shop.