The Complete Asian Cookbook

3 ideas

1. Blend your own spices, skip commercial curry powder

   A single commercial curry powder flattens many distinct regional dishes into one generic taste, because each cuisine depends on its own proportions and treatment of spices. Grinding small batches of whole spices at home, in ratios specific to each dish, restores the differences that define it. Whole spices also keep their volatile aromatics far longer than pre-ground powder, so buying whole and grinding as needed is both more authentic and more flavourful.

2. Heat treatment changes a spice's flavour

   The same spices produce different flavour profiles depending on how heat is applied. Dry-roasting whole seeds until dark yields the deep, toasty character of Sri Lankan curry powders, while unroasted blends taste brighter and rawer. Frying whole spices or aromatics briefly in hot oil before other ingredients go in releases fat-soluble flavours into the cooking medium, which then carries them through the whole dish.

3. Translate ingredients for cooks without access

   To make an unfamiliar cuisine cookable where its ingredients are scarce, each item is given a descriptive entry, its names in several Asian languages, and the closest locally available substitute. The substitute is chosen to reproduce the ingredient's function in the dish, such as sourness, body or aroma, rather than its appearance. Multilingual names let a cook find the real item in any ethnic grocer, and graded substitutes keep the dish achievable in the meantime.

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