WHERE I SHOP

(For Asian ingredients and kitchen equipment)

ASIAN SHOPS

The large Asian supermarkets in Chinatown will have everything listed, my favourites in London’s Soho being See Woo and New Loon Moon. Smaller chains like Longdan, and the little family-run Vietnamese shops in east London, will have most things you need, and are often hidden gems for finding things like fresh dumplings and rice cakes.

ONLINE

Souschef.co.uk is a wonderful website for ordering anything from sauces to woks. They ship across Europe and offer free delivery if you order a bit more, so it might be a good idea to pool resources with your friends and family.

If you can’t make it to the garden centre, sowseeds.co.uk is a great website for starting your own little Asian herb garden. The site is beautifully designed and they offer a huge variety of seeds at very reasonable prices. Many of the herbs I mentioned grow easily on a windowsill in the UK during summer.

FARMERS’ MARKETS

If you can, get yourself down to a farmers’ market near you. The range you get is far more exciting than what you find at a supermarket, and the produce is much fresher and of a better quality. You learn to cook with the seasons and you can bombard the producers with questions if you come across a weird vegetable or a blue egg. Check lfm.org.uk for locations in the London area.

INDEPENDENT SHOPS

Newington Greengrocers (109 Newington Green Road) is a good place for getting all sorts of fantastic produce and even exotic Asian herbs and aromatics. It is open from 7am to 11pm every day of the week, and it is cheap – really cheap.

There are tons of great butcher shops in London now, but the one I’ve been consistently going to since my student days is a tiny humble one on Theobald’s Road (Holborn), called McKanna’s. It’s not fancy at all; no ‘hung and 28 days-dry aged beef’, and no website or social media. But you can always rely on them for quality free-range meat at very reasonable prices. The butchers have years of experience and are coolly unfazed, and sometimes even cheerful, when an odd request for a pig’s tail or trotter comes in.

Similarly, there are tons of great fishmongers in London, but I often frequent Steve Hatt (Islington) and Fin & Flounder (Hackney), because they offer a beautiful selection of seafood that’s fresh and ethically sourced (and also because they are a 15-minute cycle away from me).

BOX SCHEMES

A veg box is also a good way of experimenting with different vegetables and cooking with what’s fresh and in season. Wholegood (within London) and Riverford (across the UK) offer organic boxes/box schemes, and the latter also offers organic meat.