Starting to experiment with spices and sauces

Zascar

I'm only now getting to the stage where I'm experimenting with proper spices and sauces - and looking for some tips on the basics. I now have some different spices etc and trying to use them when I can but it can be hit and miss. For example, I'm now able to make a decent chinese sauce, using soy sauce, 5 spice, rice wine vinegar, chilli ginger and garlic (sometimes using pastes) honey and spring onions. Tastes amazing and much better than any packet or take away. So I want to start making more and learn all the main ones. I have bought several other spices and stuff for different types of food - but I feel I need to learn the basics of what goes into most sauces be in chinese, indian or whatever.

What are your go to spices, sauces or recipes - or what are the ones everyone should know?

Photo-Sniper

I was lucky enough to work in a few well respected Asian restaurants and learned a lot a long the way. Im by no means an expert but I definitely think you should start off simple.

First of all, never over think your sauces. In Asian cooking, a lot of chefs will overdo spices (adding too much of this and too little of that etc)

Their are 2 main BASE sauces in asian cooking (think of them as your light Bechamel and your dark Bechamel)

White Asian Sauce (this variation is chinese)
2 Tblspoon. soy sauce (A light one)
3 quarters cup water
1 Tblspoon. grated ginger
1/2 tspoon. chopped garlic (1 small clove)
1 Tbl. cornstarch

This is your basic flavoring and texture for your sauce. You can then add to this, depending on what kind of protein you are cooking. White sauce, mainly served with fish can be messed about any way you want. Take the recipe I just gave you for example...

Take a fillet of Tuna, roll it in some sesame seeds and put it onto the pan... cook it to your liking, onto a plate...THEN comes your white sauce, (Make the recipe above) and add to it what YOU would like it to taste like.. Maybe some chilli? A dash of Sesame oil? Perhaps some wasabi? Whatever you want.... See? We are not overthinking..we are using very minimal ingredients for huge flavor.

Then you have your Chinese Brown Sauce starter..Its actually the exact same as above except you need to add some dark caramelized flavors to it. How do you do that you may ask? Brown sugar, black treacle, sugarbeet syrup, molasses...Whatever is your preferred taste.

You can then add this sauce to your darker meats.. Some crispy duck, some beef...whatever you want.

You want the nice orange glaze you may find on some chicken dishes in asian restaurants? The recipe is exactly the white sauce above! Except all your adding is some fresh orange juice to the pan first, so that it can reduce into a nice sticky texture.


Hoison sauce? The most delicious sauce of all (in my opinion )

5 tablespoons soy sauce
3 table spoons of peanut butter
1 1/2 teaspoon of honey
2 tsp. sesame oil
2 tsp. hot sauce
1/4 garlic powder
a dash of white pepper

No fancy spices or anything...just basic household ingredients.

Have fun, sorry for bad grammar.. After a few beers.

Whistlejacket

Buy a comprehensive cookery book and work your way through the sauces chapter, trying out the ones you like the sound of. I'd recommend the Ballymaloe Cookery Course, Leiths Cookery Bible or the Good Housekeeping step-by-step cookbook.

Have a look in the library if you don't want to splash out on one initially. Books like this will often give you a basic "master" sauce recipe and then loads of variations on it, so by getting the hang of 3-4 basic sauce making methods you will literally be able to make dozens of sauces and enhance any meal.

Minder

Zascar, can you give us a few more pointers as to the type of food you would like to cook more of? Chinese and Indian are very different with huge regional variations.

Minder

Lots of chinese recipes on this thread by Jassha http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056077430

Minder

Shop bought store cupboard sauces and pastes for asian/oriental cooking include the following:

Light soy sauce
Dark soy sauce
Kecap manis
Oyster sauce
Sriracha chilli sauce
Rice wine vinegar
Chinchiang black vinegar
Mirin
Sake
Shaoshing wine
Hoisin sauce
Shrimp paste
Tamarind paste
Chilli oil
Toasted sesame oil
Fish sauce - Thai or Vietnamese if you can get it
Chilli paste - Lao Gan Ma
Chilli bean paste
Garlic and chilli bean paste

Minder

From the store cupboard sauces, we make sauces and dressings that either can't be shop bought or need to be made fresh. So for example, for Thai, I have these is squeezey bottles in the fridge:

Sweet tamarind - sour tamarind paste sweetened with a frightening amount of Palm sugar, some fish sauce and aromats such lime leaf, chilli and lemongrass.

Sweet fish sauce - similar to above, fish sauce sweetened with sugar, with coriander root, galangal, lemongrass, Thai basil, shallot and water.

Adjard syrup - equal quantities of rice vinegar and sugar, dissolved together.

Chilli jam - Nigella's recipe

Chilli vinegar - rice vinegar with lots of chopped chillies

Also have a jar of Sichuan salt in the cupboard - 50g of toasted Sichuan peppercorns ground with 200g of sea salt. Great on shell on prawns or as a seasoning of breadcrumbed tofu.

Fresh sauces include nuoc cham, prik nahm pla, and several nahm jim sauces

IvyTheTerrible

It's good to know what spices go well with what foods too.

So for example, tomatoes and basil; fish and dill; lamb and mint or rosemary; peas with mint; carrots and coriander etc etc.

Get a feel for what goes well together and even simple food will taste a lot more interesting.

heldel00

Never liked fish. Husband liked it even less. Decided that I was seriously doing something wrong. I mean the rest of the world cannot be wrong in their love of fish, so this is where spices really changed things for me.
For example last Friday I had two seriously boring cod fillets. Put them in a bowl and covered in around half teaspoon of each if the following
Cumin
Chili powder
Ground down coriander seeds
Tiniest bit of sesame oil to make paste

It was absolutely gorgeous. Homemade Chinese style egg fried rice with a little bit of Chinese five spice thrown in there to accompany. 10mins work for one of the nicest dinners we've had in a long time!

Gloomtastic!

Minder wrote: »

Shop bought store cupboard sauces and pastes for asian/oriental cooking include the following:

Light soy sauce
Dark soy sauce
Kecap manis
Oyster sauce
Sriracha chilli sauce
Rice wine vinegar
Chinchiang black vinegar
Mirin
Sake
Shaoshing wine
Hoisin sauce
Shrimp paste
Tamarind paste
Chilli oil
Toasted sesame oil
Fish sauce - Thai or Vietnamese if you can get it
Chilli paste - Lao Gan Ma
Chilli bean paste
Garlic and chilli bean paste

Was in Tesco this morning and saw most of those ingredients there, either in their Asian section or their special food section.......

rubadub

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

Was in Tesco this morning and saw most of those ingredients there, either in their Asian section or their special food section.......

I would not like to see the price for all those in tesco though. Some of their "world foods" have ridiculous prices.

If stocking up a lot of stuff go to a asian supermarket as its a fraction of the price, or the same price in massive packets. Spices go stale though, some places sell in weighted bags, or you can split out bags and give them to family or friends.

Maglight

Without doubt, the best Indian cookbook I have ever used is 50 Great Curries of India by Camellia Panjabi. Every recipe is a winner and they all work. Have tried lots of different Indian books, but this is the best of the lot.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Curries-India-Camellia-Panjabi/dp/1856265463/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1421851698&sr=8-3&keywords=100+best+curries

In Exile

My go-to dry rub is something along the lines of a bbq rub.
Brown sugar, salt, pepper, paprika, chilli powder, garlic powder, onion powder and cayenne. Sometimes I'll add some dry green herbs like oregano.

A good bbq sauce is a must too. Not the thick sugary rubbish that comes in the bottle. Learn to make one using tomatoes as a base. It is worth doing a bit of search online to find one you like and then play around with it. Nothing nicer than a nice sweet tomato-y bbq sauce that has a hidden kick to it. It works perfectly then as a marinade, a dipping sauce or for stir frys.

Looking at some of the things named above. Learn to make your own chilli sauces if you like chilli. A group of us grow our own chillies here and get together every couple of months. We then make our own sauces.

dibkins

In Exile wrote: »

Looking at some of the things named above. Learn to make your own chilli sauces if you like chilli. A group of us grow our own chillies here and get together every couple of months. We then make our own sauces.

Got excited...read location:(


My go to chinese mix is dark soy, chinese cooking wine, chinese black vinegar, star anise, ginger, garlic, chilli sauce and a little sugar. Use it as a marinade for pork or chicken or whatever. You can use it as a sauce by bringing to the boil, then add a little cornflour mixed with cold water and stir untill it thickens up. Just a little cornflour though, i've ended up with jelly as the mixture cools...

earlytobed

I would come at it a slightly different way.
Pick a couple of recipes you have been meaning to make
make a list of the ingredients (spices, sauces) you don't have
get the stuff in an Asian shop
try a couple of other recipes and do the same.
In no time you will have built up a range of spices, sauces
plus every time you go to the Asian shop, have a look to see what they have

on_my_oe

A image I found ages ago which suggests spices, herbs etc

parttime

Maglight wrote: »

Without doubt, the best Indian cookbook I have ever used is 50 Great Curries of India by Camellia Panjabi. Every recipe is a winner and they all work. Have tried lots of different Indian books, but this is the best of the lot.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Curries-India-Camellia-Panjabi/dp/1856265463/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1421851698&sr=8-3&keywords=100+best+curries

+ 1million. I have gone through a lot of curry books and I agree, this is the best. Have never had a Rogan josh that even comes close. Have you tried The Hairy Bikers Great Curries. Some good stuff also, BUT the beef biryani is in my top 10 favourite meals of all time. Food of the gods!