Ground cloves, 200g Ministry of Spices

The spice cloves in its finished form are dried flower buds with a characteristic pungent taste and deep strong aroma. They can be sold either whole or ground. Cloves have found wide use in cooking. Its extract is used for the production of alcoholic beverages in the liquor industry.

Ground cloves are often one of the main components in masala spices, the popularity of which has recently spread far beyond Asian countries.

The most famous among them is “garam masala”, which is a mixture of spices that is usually added at the end of cooking to give it a fresh aroma.

Cloves are added to meat, fish, mushroom soups, main courses, including vegetables. When preparing fried or stewed meat, poultry, minced meat, strong meat broths and sauces, cloves are most often used in combination with black pepper.

It serves as an excellent addition to cereal dishes (porridge, pilaf, etc.).

Spice is often added to marinades when canning berries, fruits, vegetables, mushrooms, and fish. In Russian cooking, it is put into jam and dough intended for baking bakery and confectionery products.

Cloves are used alone or in combination with other spices in sweet dishes, such as punch, mousses, etc.

Cloves are included in many sauces, including mayonnaise. It is especially good in dishes made from meat by-products - jelly, brawn, pates.

Dried clove buds are added to compotes, sbitn, mulled wine and punch to improve taste and aroma.

Cloves are a very strong spice, so using them in home cooking requires special care and attention. When cooking, it should be used in very small quantities. Otherwise, it can not only overpower the aroma of any other spice, but also overwhelm the natural taste of the products used.

It must be used carefully also because with prolonged heating the pungency of the taste increases and the smell weakens. Therefore, it is not recommended to add cloves to dishes that require long-term cooking. It is better to use whole cloves for cooking, and ground cloves for sauces. For those products where bitterness is not required (for example, in sweet dishes or confectionery), experts advise using clove heads (caps).

On the contrary, it is better to add cuttings to meat dishes and marinades to give them a hint of bitterness. It is better to stick several whole clove buds into meat, rice dishes, and fruits prepared for baking.

Cloves are best used in cooking as part of various spices.

For example, black pepper is better suited as an additive for making sauces, and cinnamon is better suited for confectionery products.

Depending on the dish and the method of its preparation, the rates and time for adding cloves vary significantly. For example, it is added to broths, soups, compotes 3-5 minutes before readiness, to meat dishes - 10-15 minutes before the end of cooking, to dough and minced meat - during the kneading process, before the start of heat treatment.

Standards for adding cloves for soups, broths and compotes are 1 - 2 buds per 1 liter of liquid. When cooking meat, you can use up to 2 buds. Moreover, if the product is supposed to be stewed, the cloves are used in their whole form; if fried, they are used in ground form. Most often, 4 - 5 buds of cloves are added to the dough per 1 kg of dough weight.

Curd pastes should contain no more than 2 - 4 ground cloves per 1 kg of cheese. The content of cloves in berry, fruit and vegetable marinades is 3 - 4 g per 10 liters of filling, in mushroom marinades - 2 g per 10 kg of product. If other spices are used alongside cloves, the amount should be reduced by about half.