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I have recently been ordering food from a place that has a fried rice that I like a lot. A lot a lot. The ingredients are pretty basic, which makes me think that the spices used in this dish are what makes it taste so incredibly good (though of course things like the method of preparation may also matter quite a bit).

I should really go to the restaurant and ask them about this dish. However, this does make me wonder:

Is there a way for me to take a prepared batch of this dish and find out what spices were used? The spices I do not know yet are the ones I care about the most.

(I'm very much afraid the answer will simply be no, but it doesn't hurt to ask, does it?)

Kate Gregory
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Jasper
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    There are non-spice possibilities too. Chinese restaurant cooking, for example, benefits from commercial stoves whose heat output exceeds residential stoves. This is described as wok hei (qi), or breath of the wok. – mattm Oct 17 '19 at 21:30
  • A way to find out besides tasting it, smelling it, or asking someone else to do the same? Do you mean something like measuring the chemical composition? – Juhasz Oct 17 '19 at 21:46
  • It's seems to need "experience" and "taste sensitivity" to identify the spices without some chemical inspection methods. – Conifers Oct 18 '19 at 01:39
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    Long time ago Japan has a challenge TV show. The challenger needs to identify total 20 ingredients in a prepared dish after looking, tasting, smelling. However only 1 or 2 can achieve it and get rewards. – Conifers Oct 18 '19 at 01:43
  • @Juhasz I don't know the method. I'm looking for a process that can identify the spices even if I don't know them. Asking someone else to taste it isn't even all that bad an idea. Tasting with a theoretical decision tree (think of those decision trees you have for identifying birds or plants) though I don't really think such a thing exists. If there is a good "chemical" way, that would be an answer as well. I know I might be asking for magic, but how would I know if I didn't ask? – Jasper Oct 18 '19 at 08:13
  • @mattm Definitely. The number of ingredients (aside from the seasoning) is minimal (rice, carrot, scrambled eggs and peas) and the taste difference is very big, which is why I'm looking at the spices. The grain of rice used is also something I could look at. I did also do some research on google, and I have one or two ideas to try based on that. The complicating factor is that most Chinese places here make Indonesia-inspired fried rice (we even call it nasi, short for nasi goreng), and this restaurant has Chinese nasi alongside the "normal" one, which makes the terminology pretty complicated. – Jasper Oct 18 '19 at 08:21
  • From your dscription I would say that the main part of the taste is MSG – SZCZERZO KŁY Oct 18 '19 at 14:04
  • That's essencially experience and knowledge of ingredients (that also comes with experience and exposure to different cooking styles). Spicing is also *very much* about proportions, and if there were a method to accurately define which ingredients were used in which proportions, there would be no secret Coca Cola formula anymore – Juliana Karasawa Souza Oct 18 '19 at 14:07
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    The one thing you haven't mentioned which is likely to affect the flavour is what oil of other fats they are cooking in. So if you are going to ask the place how they cook it, be careful that you don't unnecessarily narrow the scope of their answers by asking about 'spices'. There may be more than one oil, one to actually do the cooking and one to flavour near the end, like a toasted sesame or something. – Spagirl Oct 18 '19 at 14:08
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    And there's cooking method -- how hot the wok is, how much oil is in it, how much they're cooking at one time, how often they toss it, etc, can affect chemical changes that change the taste. – Joe Oct 18 '19 at 15:27

1 Answers1

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Yes, theoretically, and no for practical purposes.

Here's the Yes part:

If you have access to a chemistry lab, you can certainly analyze the dish for the presence of specific molecules that would indicate the presence of specific spices. For example, the presence of "cinnamaldehyde" would indicate that cinnamon was used.

Here's the No part:

First, you would need to do individual tests for each possible distinct seasoning molecule. Given the universe of spices, that's only feasible if you already have a pretty good idea of what's in the dish and are just verifying.

Second, some seasoning molecules are changed by cooking, making them less recognizable. Sugar particularly can change into dozens of different compounds depending on the cooking process.

Third, some seasoning molecules are just not that indicative of what the original seasoning was. For example, the presence of salt, glutamate, and various soy compounds would indicate the use of soy sauce, oyster sauce, or miso, but which kind of sauce exactly? That's leaving aside the difficulty of distinguishing various starches and sugars. Also, some spices come from the same plant (e.g. coriander seed and cilantro) and thus will be biochemically indistinguishable, even though their effect in a recipe is distinct.

So: ask the restaurant. It'll be way easier.

FuzzyChef
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