Ingredients
Choosing, prepping, storing, substituting — starting with the ingredients the recipes use most.
- GarlicHow you cut it and how hot you cook it change it into three different ingredients. The finer the cut, the sharper it gets; gentle heat makes it sweet, browning makes it nutty, and burning makes it bitter for good.
- OnionCooking time is the flavour. Three minutes of onion and forty minutes of onion are not the same ingredient.
- EggWhite sets at 62°C, yolk at 68°C. Those two numbers explain almost everything about cooking eggs.
- Soy sauceNot salty water but a fermented seasoning. Swapping the type changes the dish, and when you add it decides whether the aroma survives.
- Butter80% fat, 16% water, 4% milk solids. That ratio explains everything butter does — why it burns, why it makes layers, why it makes a sauce glossy.
- TomatoFresh and tinned tomatoes are for different jobs. And tomato paste is something you fry, not something you stir in.
- Spring onionThe white and the green are effectively two ingredients: one is an aromatic you fry in fat, the other is a garnish you add at the end.
- GingerGround ginger is not a substitute for fresh — it is a different ingredient, because the pungent compound itself changes with heat.
- Gochugaru (Korean chilli flakes)Gochugaru supplies colour and aroma as much as heat — and the wrong grind changes the dish.
- Olive oil"Never cook with extra virgin" is half wrong. It is fine at sautéing temperatures and wrong for deep frying.
- PotatoFloury and waxy potatoes are for opposite jobs: one is supposed to fall apart, the other is supposed to hold together.
- FlourBread, plain and cake flour differ in one number — protein — and that number sets the gluten, which sets how chewy the result is.
- Black PepperPre-ground and whole peppercorns are effectively different spices, and they go in at different moments.
- Sesame OilA finishing oil, not a cooking oil. Its smoke point is low and its aroma is volatile, so it belongs at the end rather than at the start.
- VinegarThe types do not substitute for one another. Reading the acidity on the label, the fact that acid evaporates, and why beans want it added late.
- Coriander (Cilantro)Leaf, stem and seed are effectively three different ingredients. And the soapy taste some people get is a receptor difference, not a preference.
- CuminWhole and ground go in at different moments, it is routinely confused with caraway, and toasting changes it more than it changes most spices.
- LemonThe juice and the zest are two different ingredients, and when you add it changes what the acidity does.
- LemongrassIt has lemon in its name and is not a citrus, and it is not something you juice. Use the pale base, bruise it, and in most dishes take it out before serving.
- CarrotThe firmest of the common vegetables, which means the size you cut it decides the cooking time of everything else in the pan.
- PrawnTwo or three minutes is all it needs, so nearly every failure with prawns is overcooking.
- Sesame SeedsWhole seeds and crushed seeds are not the same ingredient, and a sesame seed you do not crack gives up almost nothing.