If you want your food to taste good, you cannot just cook it and hope for the best. Little amounts of condiments could make a big difference to how your food turns out. So if you are going to cook outdoors, it would be good to bring small quantities of some condiments to make your food much more palatable.

Here are some common condiments in Singapore:

Salt
The most basic of condiments, salt helps reduce the blandness of food. If you just want to use just one condiment, salt would be it. We all need salt to keep to regulate water content in the body and if you are out for the whole day and have sweated much, you would need to replace salt lost with sweat. Just a pinch of salt for most of your food will make it taste better.

Pepper
Pepper adds a slight spice to food thereby making it more tasty. It goes well with a variety of food and so can be used with  both meat and vegetables. Pepper also goes well with soup.

Soya Sauce
Soya sauce is a common condiment used in Chinese cooking. It is usually quite salty, so if you use soy sauce, don't use salt with it. Soy sauce is also very versatile and can be used for all kinds of dishes. Meat can be marinated in it, it can be added to stir fried vegetables and is a key ingredient for fried rice.

Ketchup
Ketchup is a good condiment to have after something is cooked. Just as it goes well with french fries or fried meats.

Chilli Sauce
Chilli sauce is the spicy version of ketchup serving the same purpose of being served together with food already cooked.

Sambal
A spicy paste, sambal really helps to make food taste 'Singaporean'. A little bit of it goes well with vegetables and you could put more if you are making some kind of meat. Sambal balachan has a little more kick to it but just note that it is not vegetarian.

Packing condiments
Condiments are only required in small amounts, therefore it is advised that you bring them along in small containers or if you want a bigger amount, have it shared among many people. Just remember that a little amount of condiments goes a long way to having better food!

Also note that these are just the basic condiments. If you know what you are doing, you could also pack along condiments such as vinegar, sugar, chilli powder, barbecue sauce, wasabi, oyster sauce, peanut sauce and Italian seasoning, just to name a few.

 

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