Lunar New Year

Asian Wok Spice showcases the classic balance of flavours found in Asian cooking - sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter. This magnificent medley beckons the fragrant heat of a gleaming wok to complete its magic of mere moments. Whether stir-frying noodles, meat, vegetables or tofu, Asian Wok Spice adds fresh, authentic flavours to be happily savoured with the lively jostling of chopsticks. Mild in heat, more chilli may be added to taste.

Make your own all-natural, umami-rich chilli oil in minutes. Use this condiment to bring instant flavour and depth to your stir fries, noodles or even pizza. Mix in Chilli Flakes or Sichuan Pepper to dial up the heat.

Flavour Notes: Umami-rich, mildly spicy, savoury, crunchy

Cuisine: Asian

Heat Level: 3/5

From Mediterranean to Asian cuisine, this raucous dish of crispy, salty, spicy tentacles has gripped our culinary imagination.

Our Salt & Pepper Squid Spice honours salt and pepper squid's Chinese roots with the floral, buzzing warmth of Sichuan pepper that complements a mouthwatering medley of two other peppers, chilli and salt. Use instead of regular salt and pepper to keep your dishes buzzing with flavour.

Use fiery chilli flakes with seeds in dishes which require robust heat and texture. Sprinkle over pizza, pasta, soups and roasts. Ideal for making your own chilli oil. Also use in stir-fries, curries, stews and Asian dipping sauces.

Heat Level: 7/10

Cassia - also known as Dutch cinnamon or baker's cinnamon - is bolder than true cinnamon. Cassia's sweet and spicy fragrance and flavour is more intense than that of cinnamon. Its slight bitterness makes it distinctly different from cinnamon and gives its sweetness depth. Cassia is delicious in more robust sweet dishes such as fruit cakes, strudels, compotes and crumbles. It is often used in curries and stews for a balancing sweetness.

Mild seedless chilli is made by deseeding the fruit of long chilli to remove some of the heat, then chopping to form a crushed flake. Excellent in pasta, risotto and other dishes where you want visual appeal and just a friendly suggestion of heat. Its bright colour lifts barbecue seafood marinades and poultry dishes. Seedless chilli also sticks to food better than its seeded counterpart.

Heat Level: 6/10

Stick your nose into a sack of cloves and you will understand why ancient mariners claimed to smell the approach of the clove islands while still far out to sea. A terrific and much-used pungent addition to Christmas ham and baked goods, stewed and pickled fruit and vegetables, cakes, pastries and biscuits, German Glühwein (also known as mulled wine), and many North African spice blends. Also known as: Nelke, ting-hiang.

This tuberous rhizome has been travelling across oceans since Chinese navigators began growing it in planter boxes onboard their vessels. Versatile and well represented in many cuisines, ginger in its powdered form can be added to stir-fry dishes, noodles and rice, sauces and marinades.

Brown mustard seeds are commonly used for pickling and as a seasoning, and are the main ingredient in European and Chinese mustards. This ancient spice is from the same family as horseradish, watercress and wasabi, and shares with them the same hot and pungent characteristics. Often heated in oil to allow the flavour to infuse the dishes, mustard seeds can make plain vegetables interesting.

Use these nutty, crunchy and striking coloured seeds to lift Asian dishes and modern desserts. Coat meat or fish in sesame seeds before cooking for flavour, colour and crunch. Popping up in desserts like tuiles and macarons, ice creams and eclairs, cakes, panna cottas and doughnuts, black sesame is the new poppy seed!

The famous phrase 'open sesame' derives from the popping sound akin to a lock spring opening that a ripened sesame pod makes as it bursts open. These hulled seeds are immensely popular in cooking all over the world and form the base for kitchen staples like tahini, hommus and sesame oil. In Mexican cooking, it is used in sauces for mole or adobo. Sesame is also widely used to decorate artisanal breads.

Sichuan pepper, also known as Szechuan pepper or Chinese pepper, is commonly used in Chinese, Nepali and Tibetan cuisine. Native to Southwest China, the dried, burst seeds of the prickly ash tree have a peppery yet bright aroma, leaving a tingling and numbing sensation on the tongue.