Liquorice root

• gancao甘草

  Mandarin

  Literally "sweet grass". In Chinese cooking it is a master-stock and braise ingredient; the same word names one of the most-used herbs in Chinese medicine, and a shop may sell either grade.

• irq susعرق سوس

  Arabic

  The name of the drink as much as the root — irq sus is a cold liquorice infusion sold on Egyptian streets, so the phrase returns a beverage as often as an ingredient.

• shirin bayanشیرین‌بیان

  Persian

• liquirizia

  Italian

• lakritsi

  Finnish

  Nordic usage generally means the confectionery rather than the root, and salmiakki — salted liquorice — is a further distinct product flavoured with ammonium chloride.

Intensely and persistently sweet, with an earthy, slightly bitter woodiness behind it and a cooling finish that lingers well after other flavours have gone. The sweetness arrives slowly and outlasts everything, which is the property that makes it useful and also the reason it is easy to overuse.

Sweet, earthy and faintly anise-like, with a woody base. Much quieter than star anise and quite different in character — the anise note is a suggestion rather than the dominant impression.

Brown fibrous bark over a distinctly yellow interior. That yellow is the useful visual check — a pale, woody-looking piece with no yellow is old or poor.

Hard, dry and fibrous. Sticks and chips are simmered and removed rather than eaten; the powder is gritty and is used in small quantity.

• Glycyrrhizin — The compound that makes this spice unlike anything else here. It is a sweet-tasting saponin many times sweeter than sucrose, so liquorice sweetens a dish while adding almost no sugar — and its sweetness is slow to arrive and slow to leave, which is why the finish lingers.
• Anethole and related compounds — Present in small amounts and responsible for the anise suggestion that causes the confusion with star anise and fennel.
• Flavonoids — The yellow colour of the root interior and part of the earthy bitterness.

Simmer it and take it out. A stick or a few chips in a stock, braise or infusion gives up its sweetness readily to water, and the sweetness arrives slowly and keeps building — so taste as it goes and lift the piece out when it is where it should be, rather than dosing at the start and hoping. Long hard boiling extracts more of the woody bitterness along with the sweetness, so a gentler simmer or a cold infusion gives a cleaner result, which is how the Egyptian drink is made. Use less than seems reasonable: the finish lingers long after other flavours have cleared, and a dish that tasted balanced in the pan can read as cloying by the time it is eaten. The substitution to avoid is star anise, which shares the anise suggestion and none of the sweetness, and which is doing a different job in the stocks where both appear.

A sweetener and rounding agent rather than a flavouring in the usual sense. Liquorice root goes into Chinese master stocks and red-braised dishes, where it softens a salty soy-based liquid without adding sugar; into cold infusions drunk as a street beverage across Egypt and the Levant; and into European confectionery, liqueurs and desserts, mostly as extract rather than as root. It suits soy, star anise, cassia, fennel, pork and duck on the savoury side, and chocolate, fennel, orange and cream on the sweet. Its distinctive contribution is sweetness without sugar, and nothing else in this catalogue offers that.

• boiling — The standard preparation and an efficient one: glycyrrhizin is water-soluble, so simmering sticks or chips draws the sweetness readily into a stock, braise or infusion. Pieces are lifted out afterwards.
• infusing — Cold or warm infusion gives a cleaner, sweeter result with less of the woody bitterness that long boiling extracts, which is how the Egyptian and Persian drinks are made.
• grinding — Possible and rarely wanted. The root is fibrous and mills poorly, the powder is gritty, and it cannot be removed once added — which loses the control that makes the stick form useful.

Chew a splinter. Good liquorice root is unmistakably and persistently sweet within a second or two, with an earthy edge. A piece that tastes merely woody has lost most of its glycyrrhizin. Snapping a stick should also show yellow inside rather than pale brown.

• Woody with little or no sweetness when a splinter is chewed.
• Pale rather than yellow at a fresh break.
• Musty smell or visible mould, which means discard.
• Fine powder, webbing or small holes, meaning pantry insects.

Buy the root, in sticks or chips. The reason is control rather than freshness, which makes this different from most whole-versus-ground cases here: liquorice keeps its sweetness for years in either form, but the sweetness is slow to arrive and keeps building, so the ability to taste a simmering stock and lift the piece out is worth more than convenience. Ground root cannot be retrieved, mills poorly because the material is fibrous, and carries more of the woody bitterness because nothing is left behind. The powder earns a place in a dry rub or a dough where a stick cannot go, and almost nowhere else.

• A distinctly yellow interior at a fresh break, not pale brown.
• Clear, persistent sweetness when a splinter is chewed — the test the trade itself uses.
• Sticks or chips rather than powder, which cannot be removed once added.
• Dry, firm pieces with no musty smell.
• Note whether a Chinese shop is selling a culinary or a medicinal grade; both are the same root and they are sold for different purposes.

Graded commercially on glycyrrhizin content, diameter and cleanliness, and by origin, with Calabrian and Central Asian material carrying distinct reputations. None of it is stated at retail, where chewing a splinter is the accessible proxy and a good one.

Fabaceae

A hardy perennial legume with pinnate leaves and pale blue-violet pea flowers, spreading by underground runners. The root is fibrous, yellow inside a brown skin, and is sold as dried sticks, chips or a coarse powder.

West Asia and the eastern Mediterranean for G. glabra, with G. uralensis native to northern China and Mongolia. Cultivation and wild collection extend across a broad temperate band from Spain to China.

• CN — major producer. Largely G. uralensis, much of it wild-collected.
• UZ — major producer
• TR — notable producer
• IR — notable producer
• IT — notable producer. Calabrian liquorice has a long-standing reputation and a protected designation.

Roots lifted after three to four years, in autumn, once the sweetness has built. Lifting is heavy work because the runners spread widely and deeply.

1. Lifting and washing — Roots and runners dug, washed and trimmed.Why: Removing soil from a crop that grows entirely below ground.
2. Drying — Air-dried slowly, whole or split, until hard and fibrous.Why: Stabilising a root with high moisture at lifting.
3. Cutting or extraction — Dried root cut into sticks or chips for culinary sale, or boiled and reduced into the black liquorice extract that most confectionery and much of the drink trade actually uses.Why: Two different products from one crop, and the extract is by far the larger by volume.

Graded on glycyrrhizin content, root diameter and cleanliness, and by origin. None of this reaches a retail packet, where the practical proxy is that a piece of good root is distinctly sweet when chewed.

Grown from root cuttings and runners rather than seed, and left three to four years before the first harvest, which is a long commitment for a root crop. A substantial share of world supply is still gathered from wild stands in Central Asia and China rather than farmed.

Temperate to subtropical with hot dry summers and deep soil the runners can spread through. It tolerates poor and saline soils well, which is part of why it grows across such a wide band.

One of the oldest recorded plant materials in continuous use, attested in Egyptian, Assyrian and Chinese sources and named in classical Greek and Roman writing. Its history is unusual in this catalogue for being medicinal and confectionery first and culinary second: it reached most of Europe as a sweet and a remedy rather than as a seasoning, and the extract trade has generally been larger than the trade in root for cooking. In Chinese practice it has held a continuous double role as a kitchen ingredient in master stocks and braises and as one of the most frequently used herbs in the medical tradition.

A substantial trade in extract for confectionery, tobacco and beverages, alongside a much smaller one in culinary root. Central Asia and China supply most of it, a large share still wild-collected, and Calabrian production carries a protected designation and a long reputation.

Among the most widely and continuously used plants in traditional medicine anywhere — central to Chinese practice as gancao, and long recorded in Egyptian, Greek, Ayurvedic and European traditions. Held here as cultural and historical context, and it is a substantial part of why the plant is grown at all. SpiceHQ holds no clinical source on liquorice and makes no health claim about it, including about the quantities at which any effect might arise.