TRENDING: Discover These Top Flavours of 2019

Written by Bonny Reichert

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When I was a kid, eating Asian food meant going out for Chinese. We didn't know if we were eating Sichuan or Shandong cuisine (turns out it was Cantonese), and we hadn't yet discovered the flavours of Japan, Korea, Vietnam or Thailand. When sushi finally arrived in my Prairie city, I couldn't believe how deliciously silky and fresh it was.

As 2018 drew to a close, supermarket chain Whole Foods released a list of trends it expects will take hold in 2019. One of the top predictions is Pacific Rim-inspired flavours, including from Asia, Oceania and the western coasts of North and South America. It says these flavours "are popping up in grocery stores and restaurants as people continue to explore more of the world through their palates," Whole Foods says.

The tremendous rise in Asian cuisines on this side of the Pacific has brought a thrilling array of new flavours and textures to our culinary experience — and not just for restaurant lovers. More and more, the ingredients and tools essential to authentic Asian cooking are available to home cooks. Here are some of the tastiest condiments and seasonings, as well as helpful tools and ideas for how to use them.

Seasonings to Please

Cooking wine: Sake and mirin from Japan and Shaoxing wine from China are examples of cooking wines used to enhance a variety of dishes. Sake and mirin are sweeter and more delicate, perfect for rice or soups; Shaoxing is better for pungent or spicy preparations.

Fish sauce: Used primarily in Thai and Vietnamese cooking, fish sauce adds a briny, salty, some-might-say funky note. It's much more delicious than it sounds, but use sparingly — a little goes a long way.

Gochujang: A spicy, fermented red chili paste from Korea, gochujang also has savoury and sweet notes, making it a peppy, balanced condiment in dishes like bibimbap (a rice dish topped with vegetables and meat) and a flavourful base note in stir fries.

Yuzu/yuzukosho: Yuzu is the tastiest, most fragrant citrus fruit you can imagine, and yuzu products from Japan add a wonderful citrus note to whatever they touch. Yuzukosho is a fermented seasoning paste made from chili peppers, yuzu peel and salt. Ponzu sauce is another Japanese yuzu product, and it's great as a marinade or a dipping sauce.

Black vinegar: Named in Bon Appetit's list of the four Asian ingredients you should be cooking with, black vinegar is smooth and slightly sweet; it's lively and acidic, but also mellow and soft. It makes a fantastic dipping sauce for dumplings.

Tools to Raise Your Game

Wok: According to Madame Huang on the culinary site Food52, "Yes, you can certainly stir-fry, braise, and do any number of other things in nothing fancier than a frying pan or Dutch oven, but a wok is perfectly designed to concentrate all of the heat at the bottom, with gently sloped sides that offer cooler areas for your food to rest." So dust off your wok or pick one up and put it to work.

Basket steamer: Light, inexpensive and easy to use, this is a basket (often stainless-steel or bamboo) that sits over a pot of boiling water to steam dumplings or vegetables. Steaming vegetables can often help maintain nutrients, texture and flavour.

Japanese mandoline: A tool so fantastic you'll wonder how you got along without it, a mandoline allows you to make thin and difficult vegetable cuts for salads or garnishes beautifully and uniformly — without slicing your fingers. A basic one is as good as a fancier unit — just read the instructions and remember to use the safety grip.

Chef's knife: A high-quality knife is essential in all cooking, but especially when slicing meat, fish and vegetables with precision. Look for one with a triangular blade, which makes the best all-purpose knife. Japanese knives are very nice, but a bit delicate. European knives are heavier, but a little harder to hold. Do some research and mimic chopping motions in the shop to see what will suit you.