…Other than salt and pepper

For me it’s cumin. It’s one of the few spices I buy in bulk and actually use up my supply.

In the winter it may lean towards cardamom thanks to copious amounts of chia.

    • 9point6@lemmy.world
      16·
      5 days ago

      Paprika is the ultimate understudy of black pepper

      Feel kinda bad for white pepper for coming third in a two horse race

      Spursy, even

      • BeeegScaaawyCripple@lemmy.world
        1·
        4 days ago

        white pepper has its use. I’ve got black, white, cayenne, red flakes, and dried arbol (before we get into my selection of peppers for chili or salsa). I mostly fiddle around with them for whichever mood i’m in when i’m making tomato bisque (always uses two peppers) or red pasta sauce (always uses 3 peppers), but our lemon butter sauce explicitly calls for white pepper because it disappears into the butter.

    • otp@sh.itjust.works
      4·
      4 days ago

      Yeah, paprika is my go-to.

      It has nothing to do with it being the “third shaker” child of Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper in Blue’s Clues

      • Redacted@lemmy.zipEnglish
        3·
        4 days ago

        The only two kinds i know are smoked and unsmoked.

        I use unsmoked for chicken/veggies and only really use the smoked if I run out lol

        • Valentine Angell@lemmy.world
          9·
          4 days ago

          I’m a Hungarian Hot Smoked (sweet) Paprika user.

          But there is Hungarian Cold Smoked, and Spanish Hot ( and Cold) Smoked Paprika. Of course, there is also generic “paprika” that might be “hot,” or “cold,” or even smoked or not.

          Paprika gets complicated when you go down the rabbit hole.

  • Forne@feddit.org
    3·
    3 days ago

    Garlic and thyme. Where thyme is, there is garlic. If there is garlic, most of the thyme there is thyme.

      • Forne@feddit.org
        1·
        2 days ago

        I just looked it up and found out there ist a difference, who would have guessed. I’m with you on the thyme part, but since garlic is growing as a root, it should be a spice, or am I missing something?

        Since thyme is out I’d like to replace it with cardamom. 2~3 pods per person with every rice dish is amazing.

  • Canopyflyer@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    3 days ago

    Cumin

    I buy cumin seeds in bulk and grind them as needed.

    I also use turmeric and ground mustard a lot too.

      • memfree@piefed.socialEnglish
        6·
        4 days ago

        For me it is part of the base meal: smash and dice garlic, turn on the stovetop, dice an onion and start it frying, add garlic, figure out what else to put in the pan.

        • BeeegScaaawyCripple@lemmy.world
          3·
          4 days ago

          okay you’re the fifth person i’ve met besides me who (if we’re not at the grill) cooks like that my wife wants to know if you’d like to marry us. that way we’d only each have to cook twice a week except saturday when we all cook.

              • Cethin@lemmy.zipEnglish
                2·
                3 days ago

                Lemmy does support tagging I believe (at least my browser does). For Summit, you long press a user’s name and one of the options should be to add a tag.

              • memfree@piefed.socialEnglish
                2·
                4 days ago

                Oh, I didn’t think of that. It depends on the server. I don’t think lemmy servers support tagging, but piefed servers do. Such tags are only displayed to the person making the tag. Piefed servers have issues with displaying post text from the main display and with previewing comments directly under a post, but they display image posts inline … in a buggy kinda way.

                If I’m looking for news, I use my lemmy account. If I’m looking for tv/movie stuff, I use piefed … and also get to tag people :-)

        • Cethin@lemmy.zipEnglish
          2·
          4 days ago

          Roasted garlic is good just plain. It makes a pretty good side dish.

          I’ll be honest though, I’ll just eat it raw sometimes. I think something is broken with me. I can eat raw garlic and can happily just bite into an onion like an apple (though I can’t eat the whole thing).

          • memfree@piefed.socialEnglish
            2·
            4 days ago

            I’m guessing that’s a genetic thing – like how some people are ‘super-tasters’ that can’t stand broccoli, I think some people can handle it better than others. For myself, I’d guess I only have 1/2 the trait because I love it roasted, but can’t take too much raw.

    • OneOverZero@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      3·
      4 days ago

      Garlic and cumin. So versatile. Same for me. So many dishes from salsa to refried beans and salads. Gotta have garlic. Infinite possibilities.

  • mobotsar@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    3·
    3 days ago

    Cinnamon, easily, though cumin is a close-ish second. I put cinnamon in my porridge, in chilli and dahl, on beans, over cornflakes, and so much more.

  • Somewhiteguy@reddthat.com
    32·
    5 days ago
    • Paprika
    • Powdered/granulated Garlic
    • Powdered/granulated Onion
    • Cayenne

    Basically almost everything I cook has these in there with salt & pepper. Even if I’m using onion and garlic in the recipe.

  • Hazmatastic@lemmy.world
    6·
    3 days ago

    I’m a slut for rosemary and garlic, with paprika being my go-to for more robustly flavored dishes. Herbes de Provence is a nice blend as well, if you like those, but it is on the lighter side. Good for chicken salad and whatnot

  • figjam@midwest.socialEnglish
    12·
    4 days ago

    Is garlic a spice or an ingredient? I use a lot of fucking garlic.

    For spice i love paprika

    • Hobo@lemmy.world
      4·
      4 days ago

      I think in culinary terms garlic is most often used as a spice. Garlic powder would firmly fit the definition but might get more murky if you made a garlic dish (for example roasted garlic and potatoes).

      I gotta say I also use to hell out of some garlic. If the recipe calls for like 1 clove I’m gonna be like I think you mean 5.

    • wetbeardhairs@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      4·
      4 days ago

      Here’s a secret for garlic powder - add just enough drops of water to hydrate it then toss it in the microwave until it bubbles. You’ll turn your garlic powder into *hot* (like spicy) garlic. I’ll add butter too when I microwave it and leave it in there until the water boils away to make the best garlic bread.

          • BeeegScaaawyCripple@lemmy.world
            1·
            4 days ago

            huh. now i want to do a sidebyside of toasted, waternuked, and plain, and each combination of all three, then mixed into some butter and made some garlic bread with. also oilnuked, because i want to see.

            also curious if it needs to be in a microwave or if a small pot on the stove would work for large quantities

            • wetbeardhairs@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              2·
              4 days ago

              I heard it had something to do with oxygenating somethingsomething foodscience whatever. Give it a shot and let me know. Science aside, I know it makes damn good garlic bread. I like to toss in 10ml of minced garlic and freeze dried parsley after it is microwaved. Then I stir it up and spread a thick layer on the bread. It comes out just like the best garlic bread from a restaurant.

              • BeeegScaaawyCripple@lemmy.world
                2·
                4 days ago

                it sounds like i’ve got some prep to do for date night. good homemade pasta (i just got my hands on some passata, i’ve been looking for it for a month) and this garlic bread, with some nice roasted veg and a fresh caesar salad. then fat dogging for a couple days. sounds wonderful.

                i’ve been looking potentially into combining garlic bread with the pioneer woman’s The Bread, which basically a loaf of heart attack. its just a big loaf cut in half, buttered as fuck and then tossed under the broiler until the butter browns. maybe toss on some mizithra as it’s cooling so it melts a touch, get that brown butter/mizithra flavor instead of garlic? I dunno, i feel like i want to take the recipe and make it my own.

  • Hadriscus@jlai.lu
    7·
    4 days ago

    I don’t know exactly what counts as spice ? I use a bit of shoyu (japanese name of fermented soy sauce) for broths and the like. Beer yeast for salads. A selection of chilis from Mada or Sénégal for some pleasant hotness. Curcuma grows everywhere around here so it’s also a staple. Same for ginger, and the wild variant “tsingiziou masera” -although I have been buying east african ginger recently because it’s cheaper.
    Green pepper seeds from northern Mada, they’re not hot at all, just pleasantly crunchy and savoury.
    When I get nostalgic of Provence I cook with garlic, olive oil and parsley (for seafood) or I use the wild basel that grows here during kashikazi (rainy season) : small leaves, strong taste, a little different from the mediterranean species.

      • Hadriscus@jlai.lu
        1·
        4 days ago

        I wish I could identify and use most plants like some of the elders (they’re not always elders of course) at least for culinary purposes. While they have conserved that empirical knowledge through traditional channels, others have studied on the mainland and now strive to reconnect it with modern, academic classification. An example https://journals.openedition.org/oceanindien/1770 This concerns medicinal uses, but there’s considerable overlap between food and medecine where plants are concerned.

    • Herding Llamas@lemmy.world
      2·
      4 days ago

      Sounds like some bomb food. I want to eat with you for a while. To help with what they are asking, the meaning of spice below. It sounds like you are using a lot of fresh good healthy food, but little of it is a really a spice. Maybe the turmeric or ginger half counts despite I assume that you are using it fresh. Or likely those green pepper seed.

      The rest as veggies, sauces, greens, roots and leaves.

      “A spice is a dried, aromatic, or pungent plant product— such as a seed, fruit, root, bark, or rhizome— used to flavor or season food and other products. Examples include pepper, nutmeg, ginger, and cinnamon.”

      • Hadriscus@jlai.lu
        2·
        4 days ago

        If you’re ever in the indian ocean, please drop me a line, we can share good meals. Thanks for providing a better definition. I didn’t realize a spice had to be dried, and plant material. Beer yeast doesn’t count as a spice then I guess, as it is strictly speaking… a fungus.

  • Brave Little Hitachi Wand@lemmy.worldEnglish
    22·
    5 days ago

    My local Asian market sells powdered sriracha sauce. If you get this in your kitchen, everything you cook will be sweet, sour, spicy, and red for about a week before it’s gone. It’s fucking good.

    • Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      3·
      4 days ago

      My house we eat a lot of spicy food. I refuse anything with capsaicin extract, I think it’s cheating and flavorless. We had a bottle of capsaicin extract on the spice rack for six years, I finally threw it out a few months ago. It was only cracked open once, because… well, one drunken night forever ago some fellas decided to try it…

  • Nora (She/Her)@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    21·
    5 days ago

    Some top ones for me: MSG, Chicken Bouillon, Smoked Paprika, Thyme, Garlic powder, and finally, controversially, bay leaves.

    MSG goes in basically anything. If it gets salt and pepper it’s probably also getting MSG for me. I do a lot of chicken, and whenever I do I’m almost always adding some chicken bouillon to add some flavor to it. I really love Thyme, and find myself just adding it somewhat randomly to things. Smoked Paprika is a perfect flavor that’s so unique, I add it to anything I want to have a bit of a kick, like chili, ect. Not that it’s like spicy or anything, just it adds a little something to those dishes that you can’t really get elsewhere. Garlic powder is an all around great utility, and I tend to “dump” this stuff on things.

    Last but not least, Bay leaves. I swear, I’m like the #1 consumer of these things. I throw them in anything. Anything savory with a decent sauce/soupy base is PERFECT to add a bay leaf to. If you use em often you can really taste the difference, since fresh bay leaves really pack a punch in flavor.

    • FlexibleToast@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      4 days ago

      People sleep on bay leaves. You really can taste the difference. The experiment I did was to make the standard Kraft blue box mac and cheese, but I added bay. Since I know mac and cheese the bay flavor stood out. It’s just an herb flavor and I use it in any liquid that I’m also using any other herb.

    • Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      3·
      4 days ago

      “Controversially bay leaves” has me dying

      I also add bay leaves to everything. I found my local co op has them in the bull spice section, they are so freaking fresh.

        • Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          2·
          4 days ago

          Here’s how I imagine it. You have a pot of soup on the stove and you go to your spice area and you think, “Man, I’m glad this area isn’t cluttered up with any shitty leaves. Shitty stupid garbage leaves. Little waste of money green things that make you feel crazy. Like leaves from a tree outside, and you throw them in for no reason. Thank god!”

          Amazing, thank you for sharing that

      • Nora (She/Her)@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        10·
        5 days ago

        Yeah! It’s like salt but for savory things. There’s a pretty good chance that if I’m cooking with salt and pepper, I’m making something savory, and in those cases MSG improves the flavor of it basically always.

        For example: I frequently air fry broccoli. As a base, I toss it in olive oil, salt, pepper, and MSG. If I want it spicy, I’ll add red pepper flakes. Sometimes I substitute salt for season salt for a different vibe. Other times I add garlic powder, or make a balsamic glaze for them. No matter what it’s prolly gonna have salt, pepper, and MSG.

        It also goes really well on meat in general. Some cuts of beef don’t really need it cause they’re super savory to begin with, but especially some of the cheaper cuts that aren’t as flavorful.

        Another big one is chicken breast. Thighs have more flavor, but when it comes to texture, I like the chicken breast meat better, so in order to boost that savory chicken flavor, I’ll add MSG.

        It’s really hard to describe it, MSG is literally just like, pure savory. It’s not quite a salt replacement, tho i could see someone calling it salty, but it really boosts that savory/umami flavor.

        Honestly the only time I don’t add pure MSG is when I’m cooking with things that have it included already. A lot of asian food has MSG in ingredients like fish sauce and oyster sauce, it’s totally possible to boost the MSG content of a dish without sprinkling msg onto it.