Most recipes and producers of curry powder usually include coriander, turmeric, cumin, and fenugreek in their blends. Depending on the recipe, additional ingredients such as ginger, garlic, fennel seed, cinnamon, clove, mustard seed, green cardamom, black cardamom, mace, nutmeg, red pepper, long pepper, and black pepper may also be added.
Quite often, the purpose of a good chili powder is to go beyond enhancement and become the “main” ingredient. That explains its integral part of chili con carne, a favorite Southwestern U.S. “stew.” However, it can also be used in lesser quantities to flavor ground beef and roasted chicken.
It can be made from virtually any hot pepper including ancho, Cayenne, Chipotle, New Mexico, and pasilla chilis.
The spice mix may simply be pure powdered chilis, or it may have other additives, especially cumin, oregano, garlic powder, and salt. Some mixes may even include black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, mace, nutmeg, or turmeric. As a result of the various different potential additives, the spiciness of any given chili powder is incredibly variable. As a rule, the purer the chili powder is, the spicier it is.
Chili powder is regularly used in traditional Indian cuisine.
Chili powder is especially popular in American cuisine, where it is the primary flavor ingredient in chili con carne. The first commercial blends of chili powder in the U.S. were created in the 1890s by D.C. Pendery and William Gebhardt for precisely this dish.
One common recipe includes tunghing or "Chinese cinnamon" (also known as rougui, the ground bark of the cassia tree, a close relative of true cinnamon), powdered cassia buds, powdered star anise and anise seed, ginger root, and ground cloves. Another recipe for the powder consists of huajiao (Sichuan pepper), bajiao (star anise), rougui (cassia), cloves, and fennel seeds. It is used in most recipes for Cantonese roasted duck, as well as beef stew. It is also used as a marinade for Vietnamese broiled chicken.
The formula is based on the Chinese philosophy of balancing the yin and yang in food.
Although this spice is used in restaurant cooking, many Chinese households do not use it in day-to-day cooking.
A versatile seasoned salt can be easily made by stir-frying common salt with Five-spice powder under low heat in a dry pan until the spice and salt are well mixed.
Five-spice powder encompasses all five flavors - sweet, sour, bitter, pungent, and salty.
