The sauces and pastes are also good helpers in the kitchen; they bring great taste to your delicious Chinese food. The basic Chinese sauces I use to cook are soy sauce, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, white vinegar, black vinegar, rice cooking wine, toasted sesame oil, oyster sauce, chili bean paste, sweet bean sauce. In this article, I will introduce the basic usage of these sauces and pastes and where to buy them.
Soy sauce
There are many flavored soy sauces, but the most commonly used are light soy sauce (Sheng Chou), soy sauce (Jiang You) and dark soy sauce (Lao Chou). I know many people probably already have a headache by just hearing these names. Confused? Don’t be! Let’s find out the difference now.
Color – from light to dark: light soy sauce, regular soy sauce, dark soy sauce. Compared with dark soy sauce, the light soy sauce looks clear and thinner, while the dark soy sauce looks thicker.
Taste – Light soy sauce is a little bit salty, dark soy sauce has a slightly sweet taste. The regular soy sauce goes in between.
Usage – Light soy sauce is reddish brown. Because of the light color, it is usually used for seasoning, most stir-fry or salads. Dark soy sauce is made by a special process. It’s darker brown and usually used for meat. It’s the ideal helper for adding aroma and flavor to a variety of dishes. You can add dark soy sauce when you braise or stew. Regular soy sauce is in between light soy sauce and dark soy sauce. It is suitable for braising, stewing, and frying a variety of northern dishes.
Except for these 3 basic soy sauces, now we have different flavored sauces based on soy sauce, such as seasoned soy sauce for seafood, oyster-flavored sauce, mushroom-flavored dark soy sauce, etc.
Vinegar
Generally speaking from the color, I use white and black vinegar for cooking. Actually there are more than 10 different types of vinegar based on processes and ingredients. I usually use 3 of them to cook Chinese food – Shanxi Superior Mature Vinegar, White Rice Vinegar, and Zhenjiang Balsamic Vinegar.
The color of Shanxi Mature Vinegar is black and dark purple. It has a thick texture with a rich sour, aroma and long finish. The main features of Shanxi Mature Vinegar are robust fragrance without precipitation and nonperishable. I will use it when I cook meat to remove the fishy smell, and it also can increase the fragrance of the dish. It is not only a great seasoning sauce, but also has a higher health care value.
White Rice Vinegar is a colorless to pale yellow liquid, higher in acetic acid than other Chinese vinegar, but still less acidic and milder in flavor than Western vinegar. I mainly use white rice vinegar for Chinese salads.
Zhenjiang Black Vinegar focuses on the “savory” taste. Compared with Shanxi Mature Vinegar, Zhenjiang Black Vinegar’s unique characteristic is slightly sweet. Especially when you eat some minced meat appetizers with Zhenjiang black vinegar, a sweet flavor could make the food taste more delicious.
To be continued..