In fact, it is very easy to cook delicious food. As the great Michelangelo said when asked about the secret of his sculptures, "I just take a block of marble and cut off everything superfluous!" Like any art, cooking is about making simple things beautiful. Suffice it, for example, to recall the incomparable Julia Child and her famous phrase: "You don't have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces - just good food from fresh ingredients."
Yes, it really is all about the ingredients. The same little thing or its absence can completely change the taste of the same dish - turn something tasteless into incomparable, and vice versa. We all probably have stories in our minds about how someone, literally with a pinch of something special, made others lick their fingers and beg for more.
Recently, another popular thread on "secret" ingredients appeared in the Reddit Cooking community. Its topic starter asked just one simple question: "What's an ingredient you held out on buying only to later realize you'd been missing out?" As of today, the thread already has 725 upvotes and almost 660 different comments, revealing many personal culinary secrets.
Bored Panda has created a special selection for you of the most non-standard, outstanding and simply the most popular comments of the original thread, so now please feel free to scroll to the very-very end of the list, save the best ingredients and receipts - and be sure to tell your own cooking secret in case it's not in our selection!
More info: Reddit
#21
Sesame paste instead of peanut butter. Spicy sesame noodles. Makes a big difference.
Edit: dashi with miso soup
Edit2: Kerrygold butter (pure Irish butter) makes a difference in taste on toasted bread instead of regular butter.
Edit3: szechuan peppercorn. I would toast it and grind it up for Taiwanese popcorn chicken with Thai basil. Or use it for tea-smoked chicken drumsticks.
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48points
#24
Continuing the Chinese theme, have you tried the various vinegars (such as Chinkiang vinegar), chillis or fermented pastes? White rice vinegar and miso are great, but they create a very different dish.
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46points
#26
Kashmiri chili powder. Most American recipes for Indian food use cayenne for heat, since that's more typically available here. Once I ditched cayenne for Kashmiri chili, my food started tasting a lot more like the Indian takeout I was trying to reproduce.
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44points
#27
Harissa paste, i put it almost everywhere now, when roasting potatoes, when marinaring chicken. It’s amazing!
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43points
#28
Semolina flour. I used to make homemade pizza without, and always got frustrated with how easily the dough/pizza stuck to the peel. Not anymore, thanks to _Semolina_ 🤌🏻
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38points
#29
Kaffir lime leaves! I was always using regular lime leaves and it's just far from the real thing. I've since bought a Kaffir lime tree haha. Still in the pot, need to put it in the ground for it to grow bigger.
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38points
#30
Asofodeta for Indian food. Thought I could substitute garlic, but it never tasted the same.
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32points