I bought a blender. Yes, I really did. I know it was pathetic: a food blogger without something as trivial as a blender.

But, with the blender came a spice mill. It’s really a serious spice mill, too, that’s for sure. Been testing flavored salts and crazy spice mixes ever since I plugged it in.

And then I decided to make a fresh, home-made Chinese five spice mix and decided to replace the cloves with chili flakes. This is the first time ever I made it myself and I was blown away. This blend rocks my world.

Posting it now, because I’ll be making a pretty neat recipe with it this weekend. If it all pans out the way I hope, of course.

Ingredients:

4 star anise
1 tbsp (scant) fennel seeds
1 tbsp Szechuan pepper
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 tsp dried chili flakes

Directions:

This is such a fantastic combination of flavors. Warm, sweet and just spicy enough.

You can do this with a spice mill, coffee mill or mortar and pestle. Just combine all the spices.

 
You can replace the Szechuan pepper with normal peppercorns. I used these because they have a wonderful lemony flavor to them, which makes the spice blend all the more interesting.
 

Add the star anise and break the cinnamon in 3 parts.

Pulse a few times. I like to grind my spices so that it’s mainly powder, but still keep little pieces of spice in there.

I’m not a fan of pre made five-spice blend, but this is a whole different league.