Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Spice guide to Cloves along with all the Cloves containing recipes presented on this site, with 939 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the spice-based recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Cloves as a major flavouring.

Clove trees (Syzygium aromaticum, syn Eugenia aromaticum or Eugenia caryophyllata) are members of the Myrtaceae (Myrtle) family. It is native to Indonesia (the North Molucca islands) and used as a spice in cuisine all over the world. The name derives from French clou, a nail, as the dried buds, which forms the spice itself, vaguely resemble small irregular medieval nails in shape. Cloves are harvested primarily in Indonesia (Banda Islands, known as the 'Spice Islands') and Madagascar; it is also grown in Zanzibar, India, and Sri Lanka.

The clove tree is an evergreen that grows to a maximum height of 20m and it bears crimson flowers in numerous groups of terminal clusters. The flower buds are at first of a pale colour and gradually become green, after which they develop into a bright red, when they are ready for collecting. Cloves are harvested when 1.5-2 cm long, and consist of a long calyx, terminating in four spreading sepals, and four unopened petals which form a small ball in the centre. The name clove itself derives from French clou, a nail, as the buds resemble hand-forged Medieval nails.

The clove is used extensively in cooking, both for sweet and savory dishes as it has both a spiciness useful for meat and an intense aroma useful in sweet dishes and cakes. Cloves are often studded in pork or in oranges to create mulled wine/beer/mead/cider. The spice is used widely throughout Europe and Asia and is utilized as a material for incense in China and Japan. Oil of cloves is widely used to treat toothache in dental emergencies. Cloves are also used to freshen the breath. The Clove is one of the classical spices of the ancient world and the secret of clove production was not discovered until 1512 by Portuguese navigators.

Cloves are strong­ly aro­matic and very inten­sive fra­grance; fiery and burn­ing taste. The content of es­sential oil in cloves of good quality may exceed 15%. The oil itself is domi­nated by eugenol (70 to 85%), eugenol acetate (15%) and β‑caryo­phyllene (5 to 12%), which together make up 99% of the oil. Cloves contain about 2% of the triterpene oleanolic acid.

Cloves are one of the classic spices of the ancient world and have been prized for millennia because of their exceptional aromatic strength, have always been held in high esteem by cooks in Europe, Northern Africa the greater part of Asia.