7 Tips To Give An Oriental Touch To Your Traditional Recipes

If you like cooking and trying new recipes and flavors, we recommend that you read this article to discover simple ways to add an oriental touch to the recipes you already know.

Discover 7 tips that will bring you closer to Asian aromas with natural and easy-to-find ingredients.

1. A bittersweet touch

One of the most characteristic flavors of oriental cuisine is bittersweet. It usually combines salty, sour or acid and sweet touches. We can achieve this with the combination of salt, sugar and vinegar or lemon.

• We can prepare, for example, a pasta dish, accompanied by a tomato sauce to which we will add a good splash of vinegar.
• In this way, we manage to enhance the flavor of the dish to make it different and much more appetizing.

2. Ginger

Ginger is an exotic root with a sour, sweet and spicy flavor with incredible digestive properties. Therefore, it is a very attractive ingredient in the kitchen.

In addition, ginger adds juiciness to any food, be it vegetable, meat or fish.  It can even be used in sweet recipes such as cookies, cakes, ice cream or smoothies.

• We can use it in powder or buy it fresh and boil or grate it. Try a salad with a ginger vinaigrette!

3. Algae

Seaweed is a food so rich in minerals that it could almost be considered a supplement. They are very common in oriental gastronomy, since they are used to wrap sushi and accompany all kinds of stews, soups and rice.

Each seaweed has different cooking characteristics. You can start by adding:

• Wakame seaweed to vegetable creams to give them creaminess.
• Kombu seaweed to vegetable stews to soften them.
• Sea spaghetti with rice to reduce the amount of salt.

4. Soy sauce

Soy sauce is a very tasty condiment that we can add to any recipe just as we turn off the heat. That is, it does not have to be cooked, in order to maintain its properties.

• Although soy is questioned for its negative effects on health, this sauce is made with fermented soy, which is much more digestive and healthy.
• Soy sauce contains water, soybeans, wheat, and salt. We must avoid those that contain other less healthy ingredients.

5. Gomasio

The gomasio are sesame seeds roasted with salt and ground. A very tasty condiment rich in minerals such as calcium that allows us to accompany pasta, rice and soup dishes.

• We can buy it or make it ourselves at home.

• Salt also acts as a preservative, so we can keep this preparation out of the fridge.

6. Noodles with broth

Long noodles or spaghetti are often eaten in many ways. One of them consists of taking them with broth, that is, as if it were a soup.

• Therefore, we can make some noodles with meat, vegetable or fish broth, and add a little chives, some sesame seeds and a pinch of ginger.
• Also sold are some noodles made with buckwheat flour with a characteristic gray color.

This food is very nutritious, rich in vitamins, minerals and fiber. In addition, it gives a very special flavor to this recipe.

• If we prepare these noodles, we will serve them in a large bowl and eat them with chopsticks.

7. Oriental rice

Why does oriental rice have so few ingredients and yet taste so much?

Asians often use monosodium glutamate, an artificial additive that, although it tastes great, could be harmful to health.

• We can give our rice more flavor if before cooking it we dry it in the pan with a little oil and a few cloves of garlic.
• We will let it toast a little to give it a delicious nutty flavor and then we will cook it as usual.
• We can also use the previous tips and accompany this rice with seaweed, gomasio, grated ginger, a splash of vinegar or soy sauce.

If we can go to an Asian store, we will discover such interesting products as rice vinegar, umeboshi plums, candied ginger, black sesame, wasabi (spicy) or sesame oil.