five Spices

In china, ‘five species’ is an antipasto dish, also called ‘cold cut’. basically it’s a variety of meat, eggs, tofu…boiled and soaked in a pot of very thick sauce with multiple spices inside. anyway It’s a very authentic and special dish, if you haven’t tasted it, you should try it.

Actually there are much more than 5 spices, at least 10, including bay leaves, Cloves, cardamom, star anise, cIn innamon, ginger, etc… plus Sichuan pepper, chilli pepper,  citrus peel and leaves, a bit of alcohol and soya sauce. You can put a lot of different things inside, beef, pork, or tripa, pig feet, or eggs, semi-dried tofu,or lotus roots, turnips…

The meat will stay in big pieces and be soaked in the sauce for at least one night, and sliced before serving. Usually we will pour some more soya sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil and spring onion to give it extra flavour.

Every time you add some more meat or dried tofu inside the pot, you add some more soy sauce and spices, and every time you disturb the sauce, you boil it thoroughly. So you can keep using the sauce on and on, and it will get thicker and thicker, at a certain point the ‘five species’ sauce will become pretty good pasta sauce too. There are some shops in China specialized on ‘five species’ stuff, the famous ones often boast their sauce is decades old.As for food wine pairing, I will recommend spicy, full bodied rosato or reds, while a dry fresh white wine will be overwhelmed immediately.