SECRET INGREDIENT

Find out which storecupboard sauce the BBC chef can't get enough of at home

- TOM KERRIDGE

I generally stick with what I'm cooking, but I keep confident an eye on food trends - it's important, as a chef, to know what people are eating and keep your food relevant. Every now and then, a new type of cuisine or ingredient creeps into my repertoire and I use it in my everyday cooking. This isn't about the food I serve in my restaurants - that's built on a solid foundation of driving flavour through consistency and techniques. This is about how the family favourites I eat at home become more varied and vibrant. Of the most recent food trends, the one that really caught my attention was South Korean food. It combines the things I already love: barbecuing, fried chicken, pickling and fermenting. The ingredient that's my new storecupboard saviour is the fermented chilli paste, gochujang, which you should be able to find in larger supermarkets. It looks bright red and fiery, like it's going to blow your head off, but it's quite mellow and packs a lot of flavour - it's like a cross between miso paste, soy sauce and sriracha. It's brilliant as a marinade, glaze or condiment, and works well on the barbecue or with roasted meats like beef and chicken. It comes into its element when cutting through the fatty richness of pork belly.

Gochujang pork belly lettuce wraps