Homestyle East Asian Cooking

Homestyle East Asian cooking refers to the style of cooking practised in most households in East and South East Asia. Basically it just refers to a meal with rice as the central staple, with various accompanying dishes. The homestyle cuisines of many other regions of the world also follow the same general pattern, however they may use a different central staple, such as bread. I find it a very satisfying way of cooking for the following reasons.

Advantages of homestyle East asian cooking:

• The dishes are easy and fast to cook in most instances
• The dishes are very flavourful
• Having many dishes makes every meal feel like a banquet, as well as making the meal feel quite satisfying
• Because most of the dishes go together well, it's easy to make up a menu, and easy to use up leftovers
• The food is generally quite healthy, with only a small amount of meat and no dairy products
• Most dishes taste fine lukewarm, so one doesn't need to be very precise with cooking times

The general form of a homestyle East Asian meal:

• Rice
• One vegetarian dish
• One meat dish, or a second vegetarian dish
• Some soup
• Extra meat and vegetable dishes and condiments if desired

Examples of what to cook for each dish:

Soup

• Plain soup with chicken, ginger, [carrots, potatoes]
• Plain soup + tamarind and fish sauce (similar to Vietnamese canh)
• Plain soup + miso
• Plain soup + lemongrass, lime leaves, lime juice, chilli (similar to Thai Tom Yum)
• Plain soup + lemongrass, lime leaves, lime juice, coconut milk similar to Thai Tom Kha, which can easily be a dish in itself)

Meat or vegetable dish

• Stir fry
• Oyster sauce + garlic
• Oyster sauce + cashews
• Oyster sauce + chilli + peanuts
• Chilli + thai basil
• Sambal
• Korean style (gochujang)
• Ginger + green onion + vinegar
• Lemongrass + chilli

• Deep fried dish
• Fried white fish
• Panfried salmon
• Salt and pepper squid
• Slow cooked dish or curry
• Stewed meat dish
• Massaman curry
• Green curry
• Salad
• Vegetables with nuoc mam
• Vegetables with peanut sauce (Gado gado)