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I've been asked a couple times why I prefer to cook Asian food, so here's my love letter to Asian cooking:
It's not that making Western food that tastes great is difficult, in fact, it's pretty easy for the most part, however, making really good western food is EXPENSIVE.
It's not that making Western food that tastes great is difficult, in fact, it's pretty easy for the most part, however, making really good western food is EXPENSIVE.
Additionally, Western food is very meat forward, because that's what our cultural definition of good eating has come to mean over time. Most of our dishes involve your Meat, and then your Meat Accessories (that no one really cares about). Obviously there are exceptions to this
But that aside, high quality ingredients are also expensive. We don't use a lot of spices in Western cuisine, so a lot of the flavor comes from expensive things like cheeses, or dairy. Western cooking severely underutilizes vegetables, especially greens and root vegetables
What I really like about Asian cooking, is for one, if meat is included in the dish, it is usually optional, or at the very least not the main focus of the dish. It uses a lot of vegetables that are cheap and healthy, (radish, cabbage, onion, tons of leafy greens, tubers, etc)
Its also easy to make a variety of different dishes so long as you have that cuisine's staple seasonings.
For Japanese:
Salt
Sugar
Miso
Sake
Shoyu
Vinegar
Dashi
If you have these ingredients you can make 80% of Japanese dishes and only have to buy the veggies/meats etc.
For Japanese:
Salt
Sugar
Miso
Sake
Shoyu
Vinegar
Dashi
If you have these ingredients you can make 80% of Japanese dishes and only have to buy the veggies/meats etc.
For Korean, if you have:
Gochugaru
Gochujang
Doenjang
Fish sauce
Soy sauce
Powdered fish stock
Kimchi (you can also make it easily with aforementioned ingredients)
Sugar
Sesame oil
Well then congrats, you have like 90% of any seasoning you'll ever need for Korean cooking
Gochugaru
Gochujang
Doenjang
Fish sauce
Soy sauce
Powdered fish stock
Kimchi (you can also make it easily with aforementioned ingredients)
Sugar
Sesame oil
Well then congrats, you have like 90% of any seasoning you'll ever need for Korean cooking
And RICE. Good LORD rice is great. Get yourself a used tiger/cuckoo/zojirushi cooker off Craigslist for $40 and you will literally never have to buy another one for the rest of your life. Set a timer overnight so that there's rice ready for breakfast when you wake up 
I know that not everyone has access to a decent Asian market where they live, but since most of these ingredients are preserved or dry, there's a HUGE market for online ordering, and I promise you that the dollar price/flavor ratio is waaaaaaay better than 90% of western cooking
