Aquafaba

This ingredient is perhaps the most elusive in the book. It is not a weird Asian ingredient at all, but something almost everyone will have sitting in their pantry at this very moment. Aquafaba means ‘bean water’, and it is the slightly viscous liquid that you find in a tin of chickpeas. It is an excellent egg substitute in baking, and I adore cooking with it. In fact, you can use the liquid from pretty much any type of bean, although I do suggest using a white bean so it doesn’t affect the colour of the final dish too much. Whenever I open a tin of beans, I drain the aquafaba into ice-cube trays and pop them in the freezer. If you make each cube with 1 or 2 tablespoons, you’ll know how much to take out and melt when you need to use some aquafaba in your baking.