In the Philippines, not that many people use spice when cooking. The most commonly used spices in Philippine cuisine are peppercorns, ground pepper, and chili peppers. If you use anything more than just these, people may consider what you are cooking as fancy.
When cooking and baking with spices, it might be a good idea for you to first distinguish what spices are and what herbs are. This is a common enough mistake that people make, that it is nothing to be ashamed of. How can you determine off-the-bat whether what you are using is a spice or an herb?
This is easy enough to remedy with a simple distinction. When something is made out of a seed, a flower, a root, a fruit, a bud, a berry, or a bark, these are spices. When something is made out of a leaf or a stem, then these are herbs. Examples of spices include sesame seeds, saffron, ginger, paprika, cloves, peppercorns, and cinnamon. Examples of herbs include rosemary, thyme, basil, and coriander.
Once you know the difference between herbs and spices, you can now proceed to cooking and baking with these. Each spice (and herb, for that matter), has a distinct aroma and flavor. Some of these can be rather strong even if used sparingly, and some need to be used a lot for the flavor to shine through. To determine what spice (or herb) you should add to your dish, you should be aware of the kind of flavor profile each one has.
There are rather distinct flavors for each spice that you add to your spice rack. You can actually classify these according to these general flavors. Some spices, however, have more than one general flavor, so it might be a good idea to mark these accordingly.
The general flavors you will find when it comes to spices include earthy (turmeric, cumin, etc.), floral (vanilla, rose, star anise, etc.), spicy (turmeric, ginger, pepper, mustard seed, etc.), and fruity (fennel, anise seed, star anise, etc.). You can also add to this list nutty (cardamom, sesame seed, coriander seed, etc.), sweet (allspice, clove, anise seed, etc.), and pungent (paprika, mustard seed, ginger, etc.). There are actually 15 flavors all-in-all, and these are called the sensory characteristics of spices.
Not all spices have only one general flavor, as mentioned earlier. Some have two to three. For example, anise seed is fruity, sweet, and cooling. Another example is cardamom, which is woody, nutty, and sweet. In order for you to properly choose the right spices for your recipes, you need to know what kind of flavor profile each one has and what these can add to what you are baking.
