Culinary Inspiration by Otao Kitchen

Once you start with a love for cooking, you need more than just passion. Home and restaurant cooks will tell you how one also needs the right ingredients and equipment. This holds even truer with Asian cooking, which has many more complexities regarding cooking style, flavour, and seasoning. That said, Asian cuisine is one of the best in the world, with each dish very carefully thought of, and often passed down from one generation of family recipes to the next.  

Truth be told, you can cook Asian dishes with just about any kitchen tool and equipment you may have. But, if you want to level up your meals, it’s worth having a few of the basics. Just imagine that wok which many Asian families may have, preserved for many years of cooking and stir-frying. That is only the beginning. 

The most successful Asian restaurants use the finest ingredients. Their cuisines, whether Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Korean, or Indian, strongly emphasize using fresh produce, spices, herbs, and proteins to create authentic and flavourful meals. They also emphasize using premium quality cooking equipment and furniture, such as commercial stainless steel benches.  

The diversity and richness of Asian cuisine make it a vibrant and exciting culinary landscape appreciated by food lovers worldwide. Each country or region boasts its own dishes showcasing its culture and traditions.

With that said, note that Asia is quite a vast and expansive continent. Don’t expect this list to be exhaustive, but you can be sure it’s one of the great resources that covers the essentials. Use this as a guide to help you get started.  

1. A Wok 

A wok is perhaps one of the most popular kitchen equipment for Asian cooking. Asians love a good stir-fry and noodles, many of which have been carefully seasoned and prepared in a good wok. 

Dishes like pad thai from Thailand, chow mein from China, and char kway teow from Malaysia/Singapore are made by stir-frying noodles in a wok. The noodles are quickly cooked with a combination of proteins, vegetables, sauces, and seasonings, resulting in a flavourful and satisfying dish. 

Another popular Chinese dish, General Tso's Chicken, involves deep-frying battered chicken pieces and stir-frying them in a wok with a tangy, slightly sweet sauce.

Woks have a deep, untreated metal surface and a round bottom pan which enables a wide range of cooking temperatures in one pan, a feature that comes in handy in stir-frying. In addition, unlike an ordinary frying pan, a wok has to be properly seasoned before use. This is a special process that adds flavour, makes the wok non-stick, and prevents it from rusting.  

2. Metal Wok Spatula 

Now you have a wok, you need an accompanying tool to actually cook. Your work may be good, but it will not do all the stir-frying on its own. Thus, you need to pair it with a metal wok spatula.  

A metal wok spatula is indispensable when preparing fried rice in a wok. It breaks up and separates the cooked rice, ensuring each grain is coated with the seasonings and other ingredients in the wok.

Generally, you can use any run-of-the-mill lying around your kitchen for as long as it’s made of wood or metal. But, if you’re cooking glutinous rice cakes or fried rice, you need something more ‘heavy duty’ to scrape the bits from the bottom of the pan. 

3. Wok Brush 

While called a wok brush, this can also be used for cleaning up other pans. When you’ve invested in good-quality work, you’ll also need to maintain it by cleaning up after use.  

Unlike any other brush, a wok brush is made of thin strips of bamboo. This makes removing any stubborn food sticking to the pan easier, particularly sticky sauces often prevalent in Asian dishes.

4. Big Chopping Knife 

Asians are known for dishes with a lot of finely chopped ingredients. And, this has to be emphasized, as when they say a lot, it’s quite plentiful. They don’t like skimping on spices and vegetables, all of which add a lot of taste and flavour to dishes. 

This is why cooking Asian dishes also entails hefty hard work and a long process of meal prepping, particularly chopping. You need a big chopping knife to withstand all that work. 

The chopping knife has to be big, as it’s not meant to chop just vegetables. It can also be used to slice fine pieces of meat, particularly those in soups and noodles, that call for smaller chunks instead of the bigger ones.

5. Heavy Duty Chopping Board 

As mentioned above, Asian cooking has a lot of chopping. So, surely, you need a board to hold up all the weight from your chopping knife. There are plastic ones, but those aren’t the best in terms of quality. A solid, thick wooden chopping board is still supreme. Once you start switching to wood, you’ll notice how much difference it makes when preparing and chopping ingredients.

6. Spider Strainer 

What’s Asian cooking without dumplings? You’ll also have to strain them quite well when preparing them, which you can do effectively with a spider strainer. This is a tool you can also use to scoop out spring rolls from the heat, gather egg rolls from the fryer, and even drain noodles after boiling.

Tempura is a popular Japanese dish consisting of battered and deep-fried seafood, vegetables, and other ingredients. A spider strainer carefully lowers the battered items into hot oil and retrieves them once they are cooked to a crispy golden brown. Its wide, shallow basket and long handle allow easy manoeuvring.

Asian hot pot dishes, such as Chinese hot pot or shabu-shabu from Japan, involve cooking various ingredients in a bubbling broth. A spider strainer is again used to fish out ingredients like meat slices, seafood, tofu, and vegetables from the pot for serving.

7. Mortar And Pestle 

Lastly, the mortar and pestle. You need this to pulverize spices and herbs, among other exotic ingredients, to turn them into paste and sauces. Once you start with Asian cooking, you’ll realize there’ll be plenty of this!  

Look for a non-porous mortar and pestle, so it won’t wind up absorbing the oils and spices. Even if you have a dishwasher, handwashing your mortar and pestle after use is most recommended. 

Conclusion  

Whether you’re an aspiring cook, a person trying to be the best homemaker or an expert chef for Asian cooking, the list above uniformly applies to all of you as the essentials. It would be best if you had those in your kitchen. As you experiment with more Asian dishes, that’s when you can start investing in more to lengthen your list of Asian equipment to have.

Like the nature of many Asian households, you should also invest in good kitchen equipment to last through many years of cooking. For many Asian families, their food becomes more distinct and flavourful when prepared with tools that have gone through years of cooking, seasoned in time, than a brand new one. From Vietnamese pho to Chinese noodles and everything in between, now you can feel more confident with your Asian cooking as you’re armed with the right equipment. 

At the start of a new season or before a special event, many people choose to go on juice cleanses, also known as detox smoothies. These are healthy ingredients and drink-based diets to assist in digestion, remove toxins from organs, and assist in weight loss. They can also be used after an occasion of indulgence to get the body back to normal.

Furthermore, detox smoothies for losing weight require a lifestyle change of lowered calories, increased hydration, and exercise for the best results. So, if you’re looking to incorporate smoothies into your diet and vastly improve your daily nutritional intake, then this is one of the healthiest ways to do it.

Here are four smoothie recipes for effective weight loss:

1. Blueberry, Banana, And Ginger Smoothie

If you’re looking to sip on a rougher smoothie with texture and pulpy goodness to make it feel more like a fruit salad, this drink has to be one of the best. It’s the perfect combination of complex carbs that assist in managing cholesterol, reducing inflammation while naturally increasing potassium. Not to mention the high antioxidant count when these three products are consumed together.

Furthermore, it’s considered one of the best manganese and high folate smoothies to try out after a weight loss-focused workout to replenish your energy. To prepare this drink, you simply need to slice up the banana and grate a teaspoon’s worth of ginger. Then, you can add the blueberries as a whole to the blender.

Don’t blend this mix for too long to keep the consistency thick and filling. Otherwise, you can add a cup of plain sugar-free yoghurt to work as your thickening agent.

2. Kale And Apple Smoothie

Also known as the green smoothie, the kale and apple smoothie is one of the most popular detox smoothies because kale is considered a superfood and is consumed in its natural state. It’s packed with essential daily needed vitamins such as iron, vitamin K, and antioxidants. What’s more, this finely blended mix is excellent to store as a drink without losing its taste and texture.

Meanwhile, the apple provides fibre and is slow to digest, making you feel fuller for longer and minimizing the need to continuously eat—an essential part of weight loss. You can have it as a breakfast drink to replace your usual sugary morning cereal. To make it, you can place kale stems and unpeeled slices of apple into a blender with water or crushed ice until it’s smooth. If the taste is a bit bitter, try using Fuji apples in your mix to make it sweeter.

3. Pineapple And Celery

Celery is a greatly beneficial vegetable to consume due to its high water, low-calorie contents, as well as important nutrients such as potassium and vitamin C. Furthermore, it’s also known to help treat digestion and gastric issues associated with a poor diet. Thus, it plays an important role in keeping your bowels regular and hydrated, as well as making you less bloated.

Having said that, it’s not the easiest food to consume because of its highly fragrant and bitter taste that can be off-putting to some. That's where the pineapple comes in to provide some fruity flavour, more vitamin C, and act as a natural sweetener. To make this smoothie drink, you have the option of dicing up the celery and pineapple into segments before adding them to the blender or juicing them separately and only using the strained juice. Add some crushed ice and lime juice to your blend to enhance its tropical drink flavour.

4. Grapefruit And Watermelon Smoothie

This is the summer smoothie that’s perfect to beat the heat and help you lose a few pounds around your middle section. This, along with its high fibre content, is why it's popular among weight loss consumers. To add to this, watermelon has super hydrating properties and an amino acid, which can assist your body in fat burning. Thus, together, they make a delicious drink ideal for trimming down.

There’s quite a bit of preparation to this smoothie compared to the others, and it includes de-peeling the grapefruit and watermelon, slicing them up then removing the seeds. In this case, you can opt for 100% watermelon or grapefruit juice with no sugar instead and blend. If you’d like to add more substance to the smoothie and make it a filling breakfast drink, you can add some flaxseed, rolled oats, protein powder, or green tea powder.

Conclusion

Detox smoothies can help you lose some weight with their combination of nutrients and low-calorie count. They can also be used as a cleanse to restore your boy’s digestive functioning if you’ve been weighed down by processed foods.

All the fruit and vegetable ingredients can be chopped up and blended with any liquid of your choosing and extra healthy and raw food products to join the mix. Once this is done, you can have them at any time of the day to supplement or replace meals for effective slimming down.

If you’ve always wanted to learn to cook, there’s no better time than right now! There are so many fun-filled cooking classes in Australia to try from Perth to Canberra and Adelaide to Hobart, so what are you waiting for? It’s time to roll up your sleeves, don your chef’s hat and prepare for a delicious journey of discovery!

Once you’ve taken the plunge and decided to learn cooking, you’ll find a world full of mouth-watering flavours awaits you, which you can sample with the help of sushi making sessions, Italian cooking classes and workshops dedicated to teaching you tantalising Thai delicacies.

As well as helping you learn to cook with flavour and confidence, cooking lessons are also a thrilling experience to share with the special people in your life. Looking for things to do on a rainy day to keep your kids occupied? Why not sign them up for cooking classes for teens? Racking your brain trying to come up with some unique hens party ideas for your bestie bride-to-be? Why not treat her and the other hens to an exotic Japanese cooking class?

Cooking lessons even make fantastic team building activities, providing a relaxed and inspiring environment where you and your co-workers can unwind, reconnect and pick up some slick new slicing and dicing skills at the same time!

Intrigued? Read on to discover 9 reasons why you should definitely learn cooking.

1. Cooking lessons will bring you independence

Whether you’re a young adult just starting out on your independent path or someone who’s just never really been very interested in all things culinary, learning how to cook will bring a whole new level of independence to your life. You won’t have to rely on your mum’s home cooking anymore – as delicious as that might be – nor will you have to depend on take-out and ready meals, which aren’t very good for you anyway.

2. Taking cooking classes is great for your health!

If you’ve been living off too many Pot Noodles and frozen pizzas, signing up for a few classes to learn cooking will not only empower you, but it will also bring some significant health benefits too. Once you have a firm foundation of culinary knowledge, you’ll be able to prepare flavourful and healthy dishes that nourish your body and bring a smile to your face. 

As you learn to cook with the help of a talented local chef, you can also ask for advice and find tasty recipes that fit your lifestyle and your unique requirements. For example, if you’re a vegan who’s not sure how to cook vegan meals that are both healthy and delicious, taking some vegan cooking classes will give you plenty of inspiration!

3. Learn cooking and enjoy a plumper wallet

While you may have to shell out a few dollars to pay for cooking classes initially, taking some time to learn to cook will actually save you a lot of money in the long run. For one thing, you won’t have to pay for meal delivery services, take-out or microwave meals anymore. Instead, you’ll know how to concoct all kinds of mouth-watering morsels using fresh, good-quality but affordable ingredients.

Interested in learning how to cook like a pro? Discover Australia's top culinary schools.

4. Enjoy a tasty cooking experience packed with global flavours

Once you check out some of the fun-filled cooking lessons available across Australia, you will soon see what a rainbow of flavours there are to discover. If you thought putting your name down for a cooking experience would be dull, think again! There are so many different classes to choose from, just waiting to introduce you to sumptuous delicacies from across the globe – from Thailand to Taiwan, and Fiji to France. 

5. Couples cooking classes make fun date night ideas

As well as teaching you how to rock that wok and bake up a storm, cooking classes for beginners can also shake up your date nights! That’s right, bringing your partner along for a cooking experience is one of the cutest and quirky date night ideas you could come up with. It’s also the perfect way to strengthen your bond while learning something new. Think of it this way – now both of you will be able to cook each other romantic meals from scratch with your newfound knowledge!

6. Get your kids involved with cooking classes for teens

If you have older kids at home who will soon be flying the nest, why not prepare them for their exciting new life of independence by booking them onto cooking classes tailored to their age range? These engaging hands-on workshops offer a laidback and encouraging space where your teens can stretch their culinary wings and pick up plenty of helpful tips and easy recipes they can make once they leave home.

7. Learn to cook and you’ll also unleash your creativity 

Cooking isn’t just about nourishing your body, it’s also about feeding your soul. Learning how to prepare mouth-watering meals with a variety of fresh ingredients, spices and sauces is a creative activity, just like painting or pottery. With the help of your friendly and knowledgeable culinary instructors, you will soon discover how fun it can be to experiment with different flavours and find the ones you love the best.

8. Show your family you love them by cooking special meals

One of the simplest but most profound ways to show people you love them is by cooking them a delicious meal. Once you learn to cook, you can regularly express your devotion to your family by preparing their favourite meals and maybe even making them birthday cakes from scratch!

9. Try out time-saving meal prep and save yourself some stress 

When you learn to cook, you are laying down a foundation of culinary know-how that will help you in all kinds of ways – one of which is meal prep. Preparing a batch of meals at the start of the week will save you lots of time and stress, as all you’ll need to do after a long day at work is heat them up again. See what we mean? When you know how to cook, life instantly becomes so much easier!

9 Reasons You Should Learn to Cook at a Cooking Class

Cooking is more than just preparing food—it’s a lifelong skill that empowers you, saves money, boosts your health, and brings people together. Whether you're a beginner or looking to expand your skills, taking a cooking class can be a game-changer. At Otao Kitchen, we believe everyone should experience the joy of cooking. Here are 9 great reasons why now is the perfect time to join a cooking class.

Cooking Classes in Melbourne: Your Event’s Recipe for Success

Cooking is more than just preparing meals – it’s an experience that brings people together, sparks creativity, and builds lasting memories. At Otao Kitchen, we believe that cooking should be fun, interactive, and shared. That’s why our Melbourne cooking classes are designed to suit a wide range of occasions, from hens parties and birthday celebrations to corporate team-building activities and romantic date nights.

Whether you're looking to impress with hand-made pasta or explore bold vegan flavours, there's a cooking class perfect for your next event.

The Best Cooking Classes in Perth: Discover, Create and Taste with All Five Senses

Perth has no shortage of amazing cooking classes, from hidden gems in local schools to national experience platforms like RedBalloon and ClassBento. Whether you're an amateur cook or a seasoned foodie, there's never been a better time to explore what’s on offer across Perth's vibrant culinary scene.

From immersive dumpling workshops to Italian pasta making and fragrant Thai curries, here are the top places to book cooking classes in Perth — and why they’re perfect for connecting with all five of your senses.

Discover the Perfect Date Night Idea: Melbourne Couples Cooking Classes

Looking for a romantic date night idea that goes beyond dinner and a movie? Whether it’s your first date or your fiftieth, couples cooking classes in Melbourne offer a unique, hands-on way to connect, laugh, and create something delicious together. At Otao Kitchen, our cooking classes are designed to turn an ordinary evening into a memorable culinary adventure.

Cooking Classes in Melbourne: Start Your Culinary Journey Today

Cooking can be a daunting task, but it’s also one of the most rewarding life skills you can learn. Whether you're tired of ordering takeout or want to go beyond the basics, cooking classes in Melbourne offer the perfect opportunity to boost your confidence and expand your culinary repertoire.

At Otao Kitchen, we specialise in hands-on, fun, and inspiring cooking experiences for all skill levels. In this article, we'll explore why taking a cooking class in Melbourne might be the best decision you make this year. Cooking can be a daunting task for many people; however, it is a skill that can be learnt and mastered with a little effort and guidance. Do you find yourself always ordering takeout or relying on simple recipes? Melbourne offers a wide range of cooking classes for all skill levels, from beginners to experts, who want to improve their culinary skills. In this blog post, we will explore some of the advantages of taking cooking classes in Melbourne and why everyone should give it a try.

9 Romantic Couples Cooking Classes in Perth for the Perfect Date Night

Looking for unique and romantic date night ideas in Perth? Whether you're celebrating a special occasion or just want to spice up your weekly routine, these couples cooking classes in Perth are a fun and meaningful way to connect with your partner. Cook, laugh, and bond over delicious dishes—while picking up new culinary skills along the way!

Held in cosy kitchens, culinary schools, and local Perth restaurants, these experiences are designed to bring couples closer through the joy of cooking. From mastering handmade pasta to crafting exquisite desserts, there’s something for every couple.

Cooking together in the kitchen helps you connect on a whole new level as you create mouth-watering dishes together as a team. Plus, you can travel the world without ever leaving Perth through our culinary experiences. From Thai cooking classes to pizza making classes to pasta making classes, these couples cooking classes are sure to tempt your taste buds and satisfy your wanderlust.