Food

Well I am from a South East Asian Background.

A fish stew type thing is always done with minimal onion, definitely not anything caramelised tasting. Never add sugar to anything. Fish dishes are made as a relatively clear broth, with clean tasting fresh vegetables. Like a courgette for example. And you add something like preserved fish to enhance to flavour. Proper east asians would use fish sauce, but we use various forms of dried or fermented fish.

Sometimes you can add sour or bitter fruits. But that is a different genre of dish entirely. And thick, onion rich sauces as the preserve of purely heavy meat dishes. The thickness and quantity of onion is also way less than what indian restaurants would have you believe is correct. Homestyle food is way more subtle with the sweet thick flavours like onion. You woul also only EVER use tomato in the "Sour Curry" genre, where you would ideally use green tomatoes. Sour things are only ever cooked with fish.

I realise chinese cooking is a totally different thing to south asian, but when you have been brought up with a strong sense of correctness/balance of flavours/ingredients etc, some things just seem abhorrent. I cannot eat all the sticky/gloopy/sweet chinese food.