29 minutes ago, jedovaty said:Thanks for the continued discussion. The comments about filling up the pantry needlessly are poignant, since I don't really have much of a pantry (this home's kitchen was designed as a vacation home, and due for a remodel).
I've continued thinking about the idea, and I think to help with direction, my underlying goal is to expand and explore "asian" cooking that's more than ginger, garlic, soy sauce, oyster sauce, and sesame oil - which it is not! Kind of like exploring beyond mirepoix, butter, and wine for french food; or salsa, tortillas, and tacos; or garlic, oo, 00, oregano, san marzanos, and pasta for Italian. Hopefully this concept makes sense.
Which means I need to get out, read recipes, explore restaurants (I know there are some traditional ones hidden away in parts of Irvine and Tustin, then up in Alhambra area), and hang my hat with some of my friends
This will then help me understand and explore flavors better. Good good, I am once again motivated and excited 😁
@liuzhou I'll get a picture of the cheap, salty wine that has a little salt with an extra pinch of salt today
The biggest thing I can think of is that you're looking to do more "Asian" cooking - that's like saying that I want to do more European cooking. Cooking in general is very regional - so much so that cooking in one part of a single country can be different than other parts, so expanding that to a continent is a lot to deal with. Hungarian food has very little in common with French food - whether that's Southwestern France or South France, the Jura region, Brittany or elsewhere.
As is such, food in Japan has almost nothing in common with food from anywhere in SE Asia, and among SE Asian countries/regions there's wide diversity again.
Something as simple as soy sauce is different in Japan than it is in China, and then even more different when compared to soy sauce from Thailand.
As @heidih pointed out, something like fish sauce has different grades for a reason - fish sauce used in cooking would not be the same as you'd use for a cold dipping sauce that's never seen heat and is primarily just fish sauce and maybe a little sugar. Red Boat is high quality, but there's no reason to use it when making a stir fry - everything that makes it high quality is basically lost.
So, in order for this thread to be more useful to you, can you get more specific in terms of what kinds of Asian foods you want to get into? Chinese? If so, from what region as they can vary wildly. SE Asian? If so, Thai, Vietnamese, Malaysian? All different requiring different ingredients.
