Pantry Staples for Dumplings and Dipping Sauces

• Chinese Light Soy Sauce is a versatile, all-purpose soy sauce with a floral aroma. It is what we use when calling for soy sauce.

• Dark Soy Sauce is made from soybeans that have been fermented longer than those used to make light soy sauce, and sometimes contains sugar.

• White Rice Vinegar or rice wine vinegar is made from glutinous rice that is broken down into sugars, blended with yeast to ferment into alcohol, and aerated to form vinegar. It has a malty sweetness and mild acidity.

• Black Vinegar is made from rice and wheat bran, salt, and sugar, and brings earthy, complex flavors with hints of warm spice. It’s commonly used in dipping sauces.

This Japanese rice wine has a subtle salty-sweet flavor prized in Asian marinades and glazes. Traditionally, mirin is made with glutinous rice, malted rice, and distilled alcohol and requires more than a year to mature. Many supermarket versions of mirin, however, combine sake or another type of alcohol with salt, corn syrup (which helps mimic mirin's traditional syrupy consistency), other sweeteners, and sometimes caramel coloring and flavoring. We use mirin to brighten the flavor of stir-fries, and in sauces like our scallion dipping sauce.

Shaoxing wine is a staple in Chinese cooking, it contributes distinctive nutty flavors to food and sauces. While drinking-quality Shaoxing wine has a more complex flavor, you are more likely to find Shaoxing cooking wine, which contains added salt.

This fragrant oil made from toasted sesame seeds is not designed for cooking. Its intense flavor is better used as a finishing oil for sauces, dressings, and stir-fries. It should be stored in the refrigerator.

Almost every Asian cuisine has its own version of chili sauce. One of our favorites, sriracha, is actually not Chinese. It’s bright and sweet, and is made from chiles ground into a smooth paste. We also use chili-garlic sauce, which is similar to sriracha except that the chiles are more coarsely ground.