The FOOD Topic.

[Lord_Leperman]

Is it Chinese five spice?

From Wikipedia:

Five spice may be used with fatty meats such as pork, duck or goose. It is used as a spice rub for chicken, duck, pork and seafood, in red cooking recipes, or added to the breading for fried foods.[3] Five spice is used in recipes for Cantonese roasted duck, as well as beef stew. It is used as a marinade for Vietnamese broiled chicken. The five-spice powder mixture has followed the Chinese diaspora and has been incorporated into other national cuisines throughout Asia.

Although this mixture is used in restaurant cooking, few Chinese households use it in day-to-day cooking. In Hawaii, some restaurants place a shaker of the spice on each patron's table. A seasoned salt can be easily made by dry-roasting common salt with five-spice powder under low heat in a dry pan until the spice and salt are well mixed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-spice_powder

It's readily available from any grocery I believe.

will try it. brain tells me it was an oil or something. chicken essence?

Could be chicken powder, they sell those in Chinese groceries, though I rarely see them in supermarkets (Or I just don't pay attention to them).

Jake's mom made Sukiyaki and used chicken stock made from Chinese chicken powder she got from Hong Kong, and it had that more "Chinese" flavor to Sukiyaki as opposed to Dashi based Sukiyaki that I often use.