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Annatto

Annatto
Ingredients: Annatto
Annatto is used as a natural food colorant.
€7.70 40 g

Recommendations

Blend annatto with a little fat at the start of a recipe to color and flavor fish, meat, vegetable, and rice dishes.
  • Allergens Absent, except for cross-contamination.
    May contain traces of sesame, celery, mustard, soy.
  • Origin Mexique
  • Storage / Use In a cool, dark, dry place.
€192.50 / kg

Olivier Rœllinger's words

When I was a chef, I have used annatto seeds in my recipe for Lobster with Spice Island Seasonings for years. 

They not only offer intense colours, but their taste is interesting: at first a bit smooth, and then lightly pungent. The red hue that they produce was historically used to make lipstick, which explorers were known to have admired on Indian women, bringing back the tinted paste for their dear partners.

Story

Achiote (Bixa Orellana) is a small shrub with pink flowers that grows wild in the Amazon rainforest. 

The shrub produces deep red seeds that are rich in carotenoids and vitamin A. Indigenous peoples in Central and South America spread it on their skin to heal wounds. In the West, annatto has been used as a colorant for fabrics, lipsticks, and nail polish. The ‘red spice’ is also used as a natural food coloring for cheese, butter, rice, and pasta. It gives smoked haddock and Livarot cheese rind their distinctive orange color. Annatto can also be used to season and color fish, meat, vegetable and rice dishes.