Thai sauces: which bottle do you use for what?

Squid Brand Fish Sauce is a Thai fish sauce made from anchovies and salt, and fish sauce is to Thai cuisine what salt is to ours. You use it in soups like tom yum and tom kha gai, in curries, in stir-fried dishes and in dressings and dipping sauces. Start with a teaspoon and taste, because you can always add more. With sliced chilies in it, it is called prik nam pla, the small dish that is on the table with many meals in Thailand. You can read how fish sauce is made and what to look for when buying it in Fish Sauce 101.

Maekrua Oyster Sauce is a thick, dark sauce made from oyster broth that tastes sweet and savory at the same time, and you mainly use it in the wok. In pad krapow, you mix oyster sauce with fish sauce and a little sugar to make a quick sauce for minced pork, and in pad see ew, it creates the glossy layer over the noodles together with soy sauce. Add it towards the end, because the sugar burns quickly. If you cook vegetarian, pick up an oyster sauce made from shiitake. Read more about types and brands in Oyster Sauce 101.

Dek Som Boon Thin Soy Sauce is the light Thai soy sauce: thin and salty, and the soy sauce you pick most often. Dark soy sauce, like the Black Soy Sauce from the same brand, is thicker and sweeter and you mainly use it for color; in pad see ew it gives the noodles their dark, slightly caramelized edges. Sweet soy sauce is even more syrupy and sweet. Golden Mountain is a seasoning sauce, a spiced soy sauce that many Thai cooks use in stir-fried dishes and over a fried egg. If you only have Japanese soy sauce at home, like Kikkoman Soy Sauce, you can use that where a recipe calls for light soy sauce; just taste it first, because the flavor is a bit rounder. How all the types compare to each other, you can read in Soy Sauce 101.

Mae Ploy Sweet Chilli Sauce is the sweet, mildly spicy chilli sauce that most people know as a dipping sauce for spring rolls. In Thailand it is called nam jim kai, literally dipping sauce for chicken, and that is why so many bottles say ‘for chicken’: it goes with grilled chicken. It is also delicious with fish balls, fried tofu and prawns, and a splash over oven-roasted chicken thigh fillet gives a quick, sticky coating.

Sriraja Panich is a Thai chilli sauce from Si Racha, the coastal town sriracha is named after, and it is thinner and more sweet and sour than the thick sriracha you know from squeeze bottles. In Thailand you put it on omelettes and fried seafood; here it works just as easily over khao pad or a bowl of noodle soup. Flying Goose is thicker and has many varieties, from no MSG to extra hot or with lemongrass. Read all about brands, flavours and spiciness in Sriracha explained.

Erawan Tamarind Paste is a block of pressed tamarinde with seeds, and you make the fruity sourness that gives pad thai its flavour from it. You leave a piece to soak in boiling water for a few minutes, stir it loose and strain the liquid, so the seeds and fibres remain. In the recipe for pad thai you mix that tamarinde with fish sauce and sugar to make the sauce, and in massaman curry it goes in at the end, together with palm sugar. If you want it faster, choose a seedless block or a concentrate from a jar that you add with a spoon. The strength varies by brand, so start with a small amount and taste.

X.O. Shrimp Paste is a shrimp paste, called kapi in Thailand, made from fermented prawns and salt. It smells strong and tastes very salty, so you only need a little: half a teaspoon in a homemade curry paste or chilli dip gives a deep, savoury base that you don't taste as fish. Many ready-made curry pastes already contain shrimp paste, so you don't need to add any. Fry the paste briefly in the oil or roast it first in a packet of aluminium foil, so the smell becomes milder. If you choose a different shrimp paste, follow the label, because under the same name there are also chilli pastes with prawns that you use differently.

Cock Brand Palm Sugar is Thai palm sugar, extracted from the sap of palm trees, with a soft caramel flavour that is less sharply sweet than white sugar. You use it to round off curries, it takes the sharp edges off fish sauce and tamarinde and it is in the sauce of khao pad and pad see ew. You buy palm sugar hard, as paste or as syrup. Hard palm sugar you grate or chop finely, paste you scoop out of the jar and syrup dissolves fastest in a dressing. If you don't have it at home, use light brown muscovado sugar.

Not sure where to start? Get a bottle of fish sauce, a bottle of light soy sauce, oyster sauce and some palm sugar, because with those you can make khao pad, pad krapow and most curries; tamarinde and dark soy sauce come next as soon as you fancy pad thai or pad see ew.

Mae Ploy Green Curry Paste, a can of coconut milk and a bag of jasmine rice will complete your Thai pantry. Read Thai curry explained to find out what each curry is and how much paste to use, and read more about lemongrass, galangal and kaffir lime leaves in Thai herbs.