Annatto Seed standard jar 40g Steenbergs
Annatto is an orange-red seed used in Caribbean cooking and crucial for Mexican achiote paste.
Read full product details and descriptionAnnatto is an orange-red seed used in Caribbean cooking and crucial for Mexican achiote paste.
Read full product details and descriptionAnnatto seed is perhaps best known for its colour and is the orange in cheddar cheese, however it does have a flavour and aroma - often described as a mixture slightly between pepper and nutmeg. For more on annatto, visit Gernot Katzer's Spice Pages.
Annatto is also known as roucou or achiote. Annatto is often used in Indian, Latin American and Caribbean cooking.
Annatto is the orange-red seed from a small evergreen tree that is native to tropical South America. Annatto seeds have a faint flowery or peppermint scent and a delicate, earthy, slightly peppery taste with a hint of bitterness. Annatto gives a nice earthy taste to food if used in larger amounts than just for colouring.
Annatto seeds can be soaked - a bit like for saffron - in hot water to obtain a brightly coloured liquid for stocks and stews, or to colour rice. In the Caribbean, annatto seeds are fried in fat over a low heat, then discarded, and then the orange coloured fat is used for cooking. You can colour a large batch of oil and keep it for several months in a jar for use when you require it.
In Venezuala, annatto is combined with garlic, paprika and herbs to make alino criollo, a popular condiment. In Mexico, annatto is an ingredient an achiote paste - the Yucatan recado rojo - the basis for pollo pibil (marinated chicken wrapped in banana leaves and cooked over a pit oven).
Annatto is good with: beef, egg, fish (try it with salt cod), okra, onions, peppers, pork, poultry, pulses, rice, squashes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, in fact with most vegetables.