Welcome to the Celtnet Spice Guide. As this site has grown and many more recipes have been added it's become evident that a guide to the various herbs available to the cook is necessary. With spices becoming more commonly available and more exotic spices becoming available from all over the world it has become evident that some kind of guide or introduction to spices is necessary. These pages are an attempt at bringing all the various culinary spices together into one place so that you can see what's available and perhaps find something new to use in your own cooking. To use this Spice Guide simply click on the first letter of the herb name above or below. Alternativey why not just browse through the guide. All the spices given here, whether common or rare, can be obtained via your local supermarket (or more often via your local Asian supermarket) or via a specialist spice distributor.

This is the description page for Star Anise (llicium verum) and includes a description as well as an image, if available and a selection of recipes from this site that relates to the herb: Star Anise.

Star Anise is the star-shaped pericarp (the outer part of a fruit, excluding the seeds) of llicium verum, a small native evergreen tree of southwest China (also known as Chinese star anise, Indian anise, Badian anise [is is known as bājiǎo, 八角, literally 'eight-corners' in Mandarin). The fruit is bourne by a small evergreen tree that is believed to be native to southwestern China ad which is a member of the Schisandraceae family of flowering plants. The plant is grown in Southern China and Vietnam, but has been brought into cultivation and is no longer known in the wild state. The star-shaped fruit are harvested just before ripening (and thus still contain their seeds). The dried fruit resembles an eight-pointed star and has a flavour that closely resembles that of anise (hence the English and Chinese names). It forms on of the key components of Chinese five spice powder and is also one of the ingredients used to make the broth for the Vietnamese noodle soup called phở. Star anise is widely used in Chinese cuisine and it is used in some South Asia and Indonesia recipes (though to a lesser extent).

Star anise contains anethole as the main aromatic constituent of its essential oil (which is also the flavour ingredient of anise seed) and it is sometimes used in Western cooking as a cheaper alternative to anise (it can be distinguished from aniseed by the presence of traces of 1,4 cineol in the essnetial oil). Interestingly, star anise is now the main source of the chemical compound shikimic acid (extracted from the seeds), a primary ingredient used to create the anti-flu drug Tamiflu, which is regarded as the most promising drug to mitigate the severity of bird flu (H5N1); though there is evidence that some strains of bird flue have already developed resistance against this drug.

The archaic English name of badian anise, which is used in some historic recipes, is acutally derived from the Persian name of star anise, badiyan [بادیان], which may itself be a corruption of the Chinese, bājiǎo. Star anise is used in almost all the traditional cuisines of China, but elsewhere it is favoured only in the cookery of north Vinetnam, though it is occasionally used in Iranain, Pakistani and Northern Indian dishes. It is also added to the garam masala spice blend of the Kerala province of southern India.
Recipes Utilizing Star Anise