If you like to cook meat ingredients, you must often use fennel seeds and star anise together, or alternately, both of them can enhance flavor and aroma, and also remove greasy for meat. In China, people often call fennel as small fennel, and star anise as big fennel. It can be seen that there are many similarities between them, so are they the same? What‵s the difference?
1) Different Sources
The biggest difference between them is the source. Fennel seeds are from the dry seend of Foeniculum vulgare, which are native to Egypt, Southern Europe, Central and South America and other regions. Star anise is from the mature fruit of Illicium verum , distributed in Southeast Asia and North America, Asia accounts for 80%.
2) Different Appearance
From the appearance point of view, they have obvious differences. Fennel seeds are the seeds of plants, mostly light green, kidney-shaped, and very small. Star anise has eight petals, each with a mature seed, they are dark brown.
3) Different Ways of Eating
People often use the two in a mixture or alternately, but they are still different in the way of eating. When stewing all kinds of meat ingredients, people mostly put the star anise in clean water and boil them together with other ingredients. There are many ways to eat fennel seeds. In addition to the same edible method as star anise, it can also be taken in decoction, or can be taken directly after being ground into fine powder, or mixed with various ingredients.
4) Different Taste
Although they are all flavor-enhancing spices, they are also different in taste. The scent of star anise is relatively strong, and the pungent odor is obvious, but the scent of fennel seeds is relatively fresh, and there is almost no pungent taste. The aroma of star anise is stronger after being boiled, while the fennel seeds is stronger after being fried or roasted.
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