My favourite ready to cook exotic Asian spicy sauces and curry

Exotic Asian cooking sauces in a convenient pack - have you tried and tested them all? They are Godsend to aspiring, busy, modern cooks who like to replicate traditional dishes without the fuss.

Prima Taste saves lots of time and the hard work of preparing classic Singapore/ Malaysian cuisines from scratch, yet upholds consistent quality and authenticity. The best in the range are Chicken Rice and Nonya Laksa (coconut and mint without curry powder). Other sauces that are outstanding are Chilli Crab, Sayur Lodeh, Hokkien Mee and Mee Siam.

For spicy foods, Brahims is a well established brand for the fastidous and cost conscious. The best in this line are assam pedas (sour curry for seafood) and rendang (dry meat curry).

Teans (masterchef Tian in Chinese) is well known for its Curry Chicken. It is concentrated and aromatic but in general, the sauces produced under this line tend to be too spicy for the liking of some foreign palates.

For basic curry paste, Mae Ploy red curry is a versatile base for cooking a wide variety of spicy Southeast Asian dishes. You only need 100 g or less for a pot of curry, so chill the remainder for future use.

Panthai Norasing is a reputable brand name known for high quality products in the Thai culinary scene. However, some of the sauces are rather pricey. My favourites are the salty yellow beans and roast chilli paste in soya oil.

Gimson nonya curry chilli paste is very useful for whipping up many northern Malaysian dishes such as tangy fish laksa, seafood and rojak (salad). It contains torch ginger and Vietnamese mint which are difficult to obtain outside tropical Asian countries but are essential ingredients to impart a uniquely Penang taste. Gimson has ventured into other product lines but they are not to my liking.

As Asian cuisine gains greater popularity in all parts of the world, many pseudo sauces have emerged to tap the growing market. Many brands who claim to be "nonya" do not do justice to the original dishes as they fail to capture the sophisticated and subtle flavours.

Let me know if you have more recommendations to add to this list.