Five Tastes Cookbook & Ingredient Set

The Five Tastes Cookbook Ingredient Set pairs Fuchsia Dunlop’s flavour-led Chinese cookbook with five useful pantry staples. The book explores sour, bitter, sweet, pungent and salty tastes across around 120 recipes.

The Five Tastes Cookbook and Ingredient Set contains:

• Five Tastes by Fuchsia Dunlop
• Chinkiang Black Rice Vinegar, 300ml
• Lee Kum Kee Premium Light Soy, 500ml
• Lee Kum Kee Pure Sesame Oil, 207ml
• Lee Kum Kee Chiu Chow Chilli Oil
• Lee Kum Kee Chilli Bean Sauce - Toban Djan, 368g
• Sous Chef Drawstring Gift Bag
  

When people in ancient China spoke of the ‘five tastes’, they were talking not only literally about the five tastes recognized in Chinese gastronomy – sour, bitter, sweet, pungent and salty – but also metaphorically about all the ingredients and flavours at a cook’s disposal. They were part of the dynamic process of the cosmos, like the five elements and the constant flux of yin and yang. A chef was a kind of magician, someone able to harness the virtues of the five tastes and combine them harmoniously in a dish.

• Learn how five tastes shape Chinese cooking
• Includes around 120 flexible, home-friendly recipes
• Black vinegar brings dark, malty sourness
• Chilli bean sauce adds fermented depth
• A generous gift for curious home cooks

You don’t need to be a Chinese cook to find inspiration in the Chinese arts of flavour. With a few core seasonings, flavour combinations and techniques, you can conjure up delicious dishes from whatever ingredients you have to hand, whether seasonal treats from a farmers’ market, specialist produce or basic vegetables from a supermarket.

These recipes – which celebrate the Chinese philosophy that good health and pleasure are inseparable when it comes to food – will show you how to celebrate the irresistible flavours of China in your own kitchen.

Start with dumpling dips, glossy stir-fries, cold noodles or mapo tofu. More than a recipe collection, the book explains how flavours work together, helping you adjust a dish by taste rather than follow every instruction rigidly.

All included ingredients are dairy-free. Contains wheat, soy and sesame. The cookbook includes meat and fish recipes and is not a vegetarian cookbook.