No matter what the cuisine, and regardless of the culture, good cooking relies on solid foundations. For Southeast Asian cooking that means curry pastes made from scratch; sauces, pickles and sambals whipped up using a few carefully chosen ingredients; and various types of rice cooked to tender perfection. None of these recipes is technically difficult, and most are not time consuming. However, the difference in flavour when you make your own, rather than rely on the store-bought alternatives, is simply out of this world.

Sambals

Sambals, widely used in Indonesian and Malaysian cooking, are a sauce (either chunky or smooth) or paste, served as a condiment with other dishes. They encompass a huge variety of flavours, ingredient combinations and cooking techniques. They can be raw, cooked (simmered, fried or deep-fried), fresh or preserved. There are sambals made using everything from fermented durian, chopped raw tomato and shredded green mango, to preserved mackerel and deep-fried dried anchovies. Generally chillies are a major feature of sambals and consequently most tend to be hot – some extremely so.

Curry pastes

Southeast Asia is home to so many different types of curries and their pastes, and including examples of them all is outside the scope of this work. However, the four paste recipes we cover just had to be included. Hot and pungent Thai green curry paste, made with green chillies and kaffir lime leaves, goes well with fish, chicken and bitter vegetables. Thai red curry paste is fragrant with dashes of cumin, coriander, pepper, galangal and lime and laced with dried red chillies. It works particularly well with beef and duck. Yellow curries are a feature of southern Thai cooking and the paste gets its distinctive colour from the use of turmeric. It’s brilliant with fish and seafood. Malaysian Nonya curry paste, with its complex spicing and chilli kick is a winner cooked with chicken.