My personal list of links of ingredients
Below I have links to my choice of certain ingredients. They are generally to amazon but they can (and ideally should) be bought in your local independent store.
Unsurprisingly the top few are effectively forms of the essential essence of most food — salt, fat and acid, plus of course the umami of soy.
I try to be quite exacting about the ingredients I use. To put it in terms of sparkling wine I’m not using the equivalent of 1921 vintage Dom Perignon, but nor do I use the equivalent of £3.99 own-brand value prosecco. what I look for are ingredients made the traditional way. They should contain no non-nutritive extras like sweeteners, additives, sulphites, E‑numbers, preservatives, وغیرہ. They should be priced reasonably for the average enthusiastic home cook. Where possible they should come in containers with no plastic. And where possible they should be organic, vegan and gluten-free — so I can use them when cooking for people with different dietary requirements. I also prefer non-GMO where possible (not because of direct helath reasons but because many commercial GMO crops are designed to be extra-resistant to strong chemicals which are then used extensively and harmfully to wildlife.)
Soy
There are several varieties of Soy, but broadly they fall into 3 camps: light, dark, and sweet. Light is actually the saltiest!
The soy’s from China and Japan are also different — traditionally Chinese soy sauce is made using only soybeans, whilst Japanese usually contains wheat. Japanese light soy sauce is usually lighter than Chinese
- light / thin soy. It’s Chinese style but I haven’t been able to find any Thai or Japanese-style soy that doesn’t have added E numbers and preservatives
- Tamari (Japanese Dark soy). Halal, vegan, free of additives, and gluten-free. Can work as a general purpose dark-soy which will work in Japanese and Chinese dishes.
- Black / Thick soy / Cooking Caramel. I don’t get this as I haven’t been able to find one, and I don’t often have need for it. At a push I would use Tamari combined with some molasses
- Sweet Soy / kecap manis. This is around 79% sugar by weight which is correct for Kecap Manis. Its also free of preservatives. Sometimes written Ketjap Manis — pronounced like Ketchup!
Salt
I mainly use coarse himalayan pink salt as it is lower in microplastics than most salts, and does not contain any additives like anti-caking agents. However it misses the texture of flaky salts which are great for finishing a dish, and due to being pink isn’t ideal for pickling. For those purposes I use small quantities of other salts
- Pink Himalayan salt
- White Himalayan salt for pickling
- Premium flaky sea salt for finishing only
Oil
I really like the taste of Cretan Olive Oil and I don’t use much else. Extra Virgin OO isn’t well suited for deep frying though, so I usually have some extra-virgin rapeseed oil handy for that. I never use butter as I am dairy intolerant and 99% of the time olive oil and a pinch of salt works just as well. The only other oil I use frequently is sesame oil.
- UK-produced cold-pressed EV rapeseed oil
- Terra Creta Cretan EV Olive Oil
- Lyrakis Family Cretan EV Olive Oil
- Sesame Oil. I use sesame oil mostly for cooking with not finishing, so I use an oil made from untoasted sesame seeds.
Vinegars
These are different from the wines below and have longer shelf-lives. Whilst all of the wines above are pleasant when drunk, these are not intended for drinking on their own. Note that “white vinegar” is not the same as distilled malt vinegar OR white wine vinegar, and is more used for cleaning than cooking, although it is cheap and can be used in pickling and cooking if you wish to! Where possible avoid vinegars that have added ingredients or that have been pasturised. The best wine vinegars are made with the traditional orleans process which takes time (and hence makes them cost more)
- Red Wine Vinegar. Goes well with red meats and strong flavours — like red wine.
- White Wine Vinegar. Goes well with fish and poultry and lighter dishes. Good for deglazing a pan
- Rice Vinegar / Rice Wine Vinegar. I prefer unseasoned — I can always add my own seasoning. This is a mild vinegar often used in east-asian cooking.
- Balsamic Vinegar. These can get truly silly in pricy — like premium wines. I go by the law of diminishing returns — get something well rated and tasty without going to crazy — in this case it means an IGP Modena. In an ideal world I would get DOP but it’s just so pricey.
- Apple Cider Vinegar. A medium fruity vinegar that sits nicely between red and white wine vinegars. Goes especially well with pork.
- Malt Vinegar. Essential on chips and any other potato format generally. I get this in bulk and refill my glass bottle.
- Distilled Malt Vinegar. I like to use this for pickling. I prefer it to plain white vinegar.
Fortified and cooking wines
Different fortified wines have quite different flavour profiles. They also have a bit of a limit on their life span once opened so I tend to get smaller bottles when I can, and once one is opened try to use it within a few weeks. A vacuum-seal (intended for regular wine) can help them last longer too
- Port. The richest and darkest of the 3 most common fortified wines, think of it as a fortified red-wine. Works well with meaty casseroles. Both Tawny and Ruby port work well, but Ruby port adds a brighter more appealing colour and tends to be cheaper. The extra complexity of flavour in tawny port tends to be lost in most dishes port gets used in so ruby port is usually the better choice
- Sherry. The lightest of the 3 common fortified wines, basically a fortified white-wine. Tends to have a nutty flavour and is good in soups and stews. Dry sherry is what is needed — sweet sherry is for drinking and desserts.
- Marsala Wine. A balanced medium between port and sherry. It works well in marinades, sauces, and with both meat and seafood. The dry (secco) version is generally better for cooking, whilst the sweet (dolce) is more useful for baking and desserts. As I mainly want it for cooking I get a dry one — of which there are far fewer to choose from.
- Saki. Rice wine. Ideally should be Junmai (made from 100% rice with no brewers alcohol added).
- Mirin. A rice wine similar to Saki but sweeter and with less alcohol (around 14%)
Sauces & Condiments
I try to make as many sauces and spice mixes as I can at home, because that way they have the freshest flavour, no additives or preservatives, and I can control the amounts of salt, refined sugar, etc that go into them. But like the soy-sauce above some things just aren’t practical to make at home
- Fish Sauce. It’s always going to be salty, but you also want the umami so try to get a good quality one and don’t go overboard with it.
- Molasses
- Tomato Ketchup
- Tamarind Paste
- Tomato Puree. This is double concentrate, also known as tomato paste in the US.
- Sesame Paste. It is not easy to make this yourself from sesame seeds so I tend to get it pre-made.
- Lemongrass Paste. Home making this would be quite a challenge I imagine, and I dislike having to pick around whole lemongrass in food so I always use this instead of whole lemongrass.
Special Mention: Tomatoes
Ahh. Tomatoes. Absolutley fantastic when I eat them in Crete (or Greece, or Italy etc.), but almost always disappointing in the UK. We simply have the wrong varieties — ones that have been grown for a uniform appearance and a long shelf life (and absolutely zero flavour). During the summer I can grow a few of my own and enjoy the real thing. And farmers markets and the greengrocer have some pretty good ones too. The rest of the year though it’s really just a choice of 2 options — the best cherry tomatoes I can find in the greengrocer, OR tinned tomatoes. Salads and garnishes obviously must use fresh, but for any tomatoes that will be cooked I tend to use tinned — because good tinned tomatoes will always have more flavour (and probably arrived by road, rail, and/or sea so are lower carbon I hope).
I use tinned tomatoes year round for some pizza and pasta sauces even when reasonable fresh ones are available — so I tend to try to get San Marzano’s despite the astronomic cost (and despite knowing that they probably aren’t actually strictly San Marzano’s because afterall only so many tomatoes can be grown per year in an area of only 70 square miles! That said, the “San Marzano’s” that I get do taste great, they are sweet, and they are low acid — as San Marzano’s should be. The best value place I have found to get these is for £1.33 per can by buying 24-packs from a places called Mercanti. As they have a long shelf life I tend to buy 2 یا 3 cases to make best use of the delivery cost. It’s still a lot more than the cost of your everyday supermarket essentials but for an extra 20–30p per head it can make all the difference to a meal. For a slightly more budget friendly alternative I recommend looking for Corbarino or Piennolo tomatoes. And if you’re in a rush then the best widely-available tomatoes are the brand Mutti which you can usually find in most specialist grocers and even sometimes in the supermarket. Also note that I never buy chopped tinned tomatoes as these almost always have additives, whereas whole tinned tomatoes rarely have anything added. Note that there are several places online that also sell a 24-case of 400g for around £32 (£1.33 per tin / £3.33 per kg) but most of them appear to be wholesalers that will only deliver to business addresses.
Things to make at home
Most other key things I try to make at home. E.g.
- Chilli Paste (aka Sambal Oelek / Sriracha)
- Garlic-Ginger Paste
- Red-pepper paste (aka Harissa paste)
- Teriyaki Sauce
- Hoisin Sauce
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