Pantry guide
Best Quatre épices for home cooking
What Quatre épices is for, which kitchens use it, and where to find a jar worth cooking with.
Why cooks start here
Four spices that taste like French sausage and gingerbread at once: pepper, clove, nutmeg, ginger.
In French cooking, Quatre épices is not decoration. Add it where the recipe puts it: early if it needs fat and time, late if it is perfume.
Taste Quatre épices before you empty the spoon. Fresh jars smell like themselves; tired ones smell like dust. Buy the smallest amount you will finish.
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Related kitchens
The French pantry, pots, and table
The spices, mixes, and hearths that belong to French cooking — then the people around them, and the kitchens still joining the table.
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