Salt. Sea salt, the big crystals. Followed closely by butter from cows.
This is mine. I have to track it down every so often, but man it is on another level for flavour and great for all Asian dishes. Just had it on my noodles.
It is like the equivalent of cold pressed high quality extra virgin olive oil for sesame seeds.
Manufactured by Kuki and imported from Japan.
Salt. Sea salt, the big crystals. Followed closely by butter from cows.
Cracked Black Pepper.
"Bite my shiny metal ass."
- Bender Bending Rodríguez
Coriander, closely followed by Garlic and the humble Onion.
Maldon Sea Salt, Kucharek seasoning and home foraged dehydrated mushrooms. Not necessarily all in the same dish!
Nigel
Wasabi, ginger and horseradish. Though not together.
I also occasionally take a slug of Worcestershire sauce from the bottle
Salt packed anchovies, wash well, ginger, chilli, garlic and wine. Sorry, couldn't keep to one.
I’ve got a sweet tooth so have quite recently discovered mango chutney goes with anything Asian
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Maybe not my favourite but Cumberland sauce springs to mind. As a 23 year old sent on a course years ago by an insurance company we were put up in a hotel that served the same limited menu every night. The starter was always pate with the sauce which I loved. Very rarely see it in shops but if I randomly come across a jar I’ll eat pate, Melba toast and Cumberland sauce for a week. Probably come across it every 3 or 4 years.
This is lovely spread on toast with some cheese.
https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/produc...-672345-672346
Reggae reggae sauce... makes some mean chicken dishes.
Also just switched to tellicherry peppercorns and they make a bigger difference than I would have believed. Great for a peppercorn sauce.
This. On mostly all my food. Any sandwiches etc. wonderful. I buy a case from wing yip.
Regards
V
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Maggi Liquid Seasoning… give it a bash.
Favourite ingredient - tinned plum tomatoes
Favourite condiment - fresh ground black pepper
No particular favourites but a few ingredients that can enhance an otherwise boring dish: Nduja paste, sriracha sauce and a good green pesto. Not in the same meal.
Sea/rock salt.
Garlic.
Chillies.
Cracked black pepper.
Honey.
Ginger.
Soy sauce.
Turmeric.
Paprika.
Fennel.
Tamarind paste.
Mushroom ketchup....
... and maybe a dozen more.
Meat.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
coriander
tumeric
garlic
ginger
onions
Sea salt. Maldon is wonderful but bloody expensive- here in Malta I buy Mediterranean salt for around €0.70 a bag and it’s excellent.
Black pepper- I buy ready coarse crushed and keep it in a small Kilner- no poncing around with grinders.
Anchovies- better than any stock cube for seasoning and flavouring a stew or meat pie filling.
A half decent olive oil and balsamic vinegar- no need to use uber-posh stuff for cooking- save those for dipping your sourdough into.
As others have said, onions, garlic and ginger. For the life of me I don’t know why anyone buys jars of chopped ginger or garlic when the real thing keeps quite happily in the fridge.
Maltese kunserva- the local tomato purée. Far sweeter and more flavoursome than anything in a British supermarket.
Ditto locally made sun dried tomatoes- every bit as good as the stuff you’d have to sell a bollock to pay for at a Borough Market deli.
Freezer standby stuff includes frozen peas and spinach, the latter great for quick and dirty saag curries.
Fennel seeds- great with fish, pork belly, ground up and sprinkled on pizza bases, or with roast potatoes.
A generic curry powder. Yes I’ll grind and mix whole spices blended as required for the full Madhur Jaffrey thing but I also use ready made curry powder a lot to add interest when flouring fish or squid or in Maltese style pasta ragu or an almost subliminal pinch added to roast potatoes.
A good selection of dried pulses- red and green lentils, chick peas, kidney beans, haricot beans, green and yellow split peas. Far better flavour and texture than any mushy stuff out of a tin.
Tinned tomatoes- an obvious one but necessary.
Dried bay leaves, rosemary and thyme.
My local fruit and veg hawker always gives me a freebie little bunch of flatleaf parsley, local (stringy but flavoursome) celery and mint so I pretty much always have those fresh in the fridge.
Fresh, local, misshapen but delicious unwaxed lemons.
Kallo stock cubes in a variety of flavours for those times when I need them. Often in sacrificial stock- eg add a fish stock cube when cooking crabs or prawns.
This is probably just scratching the surface of my list of staples.
Tamarind, especially in adobo.
Bacon.
Chillies - Scotch Bonnet or hotter (especially the reapers and scorpions).
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
Chefs Special Sauce
RIAC
At the moment it is this…a few prawns, less than minute in the wok.
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Dolphin and baby seal.
A bit of horse radish on beef, mustard on ham, otherwise just a little black pepper. I stay off salt for health reasons.
I realise my choices are rather pedestrian and not at all exotic or foreign but I like to taste the food.
Cheers,
Neil.
Fresh Chillies.
Maldon Sea Salt.
Jersey Butter with sea salt flakes.
Fresh Rosemary/Thyme.
Mae Ploy Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce.
(Not all in the same dish).
Black truffle… in pasta, on chips, in oil on a salad. In fact M&S do a very lovely Truffle Cheddar… on a sarny with ham. That’s lunch sorted !
This...as a combo...I just love the taste.
Loads of things, but for brevity, a few highlights.
Chipotle (I use the peppers themselves, rather than anything made from them). Rehydrate and use on loads of stuff.
Chorizo. A good bowl of llentejas is a thing of wonder, as is paella.
I have a ceramic grinder full of a mix of things that I copied from a French "melange de grillade" grinder I bought from a SuperU once. It has dried onion and garlic, fennel, thyme, chilli, black pepper, salt etc etc, and is great on almost anything savoury.
Maldon smoked salt. Seriously, mix that into a bit of butter, with some chopped parsley and a bit of garlic, then leave a dollop to melt on your next steak as it rests after griddling. Epic
A quality smoked paprika. La Chinata will do, and is available in most supermarkets
Cinnamon, love the smell always adds something extra
Aromat, great on steaks😁
Garlic pepper
MSG.
Takes ya Chinese to another level.
Pitch