Salty
In addition to regular salt, most Asian dishes rely on intensely savoury ingredients like fish sauce, miso, oyster sauce, shrimp paste and soya sauce to impart depth of flavour and balance to their dishes.
The Thai throw-together noodle favourite, Pad Thai is a great example of a dish layering savoury flavours, calling for shrimp paste and a good dose of fish sauce to add a salty punch.
Sweet
Ingredients lending their sweetness not only to desserts, but also savoury and spicy dishes in Asian cuisines include plum sauce, coconut sugar, palm sugar and sweet rice wine (mirin).
The secret to the addictive sticky-sweetness of Chinese char siu chicken wings? A combination of coconut sugar, mirin, plum sauce and hoisin sauce.