Natural plant spices are the general name of plant spices such as star anise, pepper, cinnamon and dried tangerine peel, and compound spices are also called seasonings. In China, seasoning and seasoning are usually not the same concept. Seasonings include soy sauce, oyster sauce, monosodium glutamate, chicken essence and seasonings. Seasonings in the catering industry are usually divided into:
Salty seasoning: salty taste has been listed as one of the five flavors since ancient times. Salty taste is the main taste in cooking application and the basic taste of most compound flavors. There is a saying that salty taste is indispensable for ordinary dishes. It is necessary to add a proper amount of salty taste to sweet and sour taste and hot and sour taste to enrich palatability. Human beings have a long history of understanding and utilizing salty taste. According to documents, the earliest use of salt in China was about 5,000 years ago during the Yellow Emperor period. Salty seasonings include: soy sauce, salt and sauce sweet seasoning.
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Sweetness seasoning: Sweetness is called sweetness in ancient times and is one of the five flavors. Sweetness can be used alone to prepare sweet food in cooking; It can also be used to adjust a variety of compound flavors to make food sweet and delicious, and it can also be used to correct flavor, remove bitterness and fishy smell, which has a certain effect of relieving boredom. In China cooking, there are many sweets used in the south, and Wuxi cuisine in Jiangsu is the most sweet, which is known as "sweet at first, salty in the mouth, and red with thick oil sauce". Natural sweeteners such as honey in nature have long been eaten by human beings. The word "honey" has been found in Oracle Bone Inscriptions unearthed in Yin Ruins. By the Eastern Han Dynasty, people had used sugar made from sugarcane juice. Sweet seasonings include honey, sugar and caramel.
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Sour seasoning: Sour taste is one of the five flavors, which is widely used in cooking, but it is generally not suitable for use alone. Acid has a astringent effect and can help the digestion of the stomach; It can also remove fishy smell and relieve boredom, enhance fragrance and freshness, generate fragrance and dye hair, stimulate appetite and increase appetite, and is especially suitable for eating in spring. Sour seasonings include vinegar and ketchup.
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Spicy seasoning: spicy taste is actually a pain in the touch, not a taste. However, because of habit, I also regard it as blindness. The function is to promote the tension and appetite of eating. Spicy seasoning includes: pepper, pepper, ginger, onion and garlic.
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Umami seasoning: umami is the delicious food that people strive to pursue in their diet, which can make people feel comfortable and happy. Umami flavor mainly comes from amino acids, nucleotides and succinic acid, and most of them exist in meat and livestock, fresh fish, fresh eggs and other main materials. Foods such as monosodium glutamate, shrimp, fish sauce, oyster sauce and fresh bamboo shoots can also be fresh. Umami flavor can't exist alone. Only when it is used together with other flavors can it shine with the moon, so there is a saying that "nothing is salty but not fresh, and nothing is sweet and not fresh". Umami seasoning includes fish sauce, monosodium glutamate and oyster sauce.