Top 30 Must-Try Foods of 2019

Like berbere, this Japanese condiment contains chiles and ginger, but it adds seaweed, orange peel, sesame seeds, and other ingredients. It’s considered an all-purpose seasoning and is often found on Japanese tables next to, or instead of, salt and pepper. You can sprinkle it on almost anything, including both Asian noodle dishes and Italian pasta.

Ghee is Indian clarified butter, great for cooking with because it doesn’t burn like regular butter does. A number of companies produce spiced ghee, sometimes in non-Indian flavors like herbes de Provence, but those that reflect the Indian flavor palate, like the one involving mustard, cumin, and turmeric, seem particularly appropriate.

Chickpeas, also known as garbanzo beans, are a versatile vegetable. Besides appearing in salads and as the base of hummus, chickpeas also yield milk, flour (for pasta and other purposes), and even ice cream. Now somebody has had the bright idea of turning them into a peanut butter substitute, blending them with sunflower seeds, olive oil, and cane sugar. It’s not exactly Jif or Skippy, but it isn’t bad.

This pungent condiment — a little dab’ll do ya — is eaten in various forms all over Southeast Asia. You can add it to stir-fries, Asian soups, rice and noodle dishes, seafood stew — anything you want to infuse with a little mysteriously salty flavor.

Chocolate-covered fruit is fine, and chile-spiked chocolate is fine, but for those who really like their chocolate full of heat, this is the way to go. Kakawa Chocolate House in Santa Fe, New Mexico, dips whole roasted New Mexican Árbol chiles in agave caramel and then 80% cacao dark chocolate. Fire and nice.