Hoisin sauce is a thick, pungent sauce commonly used in Chinese cuisine as a glaze for meat, an addition to stir fries, or as dipping sauce. It is darkly colored in appearance and sweet and salty in taste. Although regional variants exist, hoisin sauce usually includes soybeans, ketchup, maple syrup, red chilies, and garlic. Vinegar, Chinese five spice and sugar are also commonly added. The word hoisin is Chinese for seafood, but the sauce does not contain any seafood ingredients.
ASIAN SAUCES/OYSTER
This sauce was discovered by accident by Lee Kum Sheung in Guangdong Province 1888. In his tea and oyster soup stall, he accidentally overcooked a batch of oyster broth which transformed into a magical brown sauce with deep flavor. Realizing its potential as a condiment, he started selling it to locals and thus the famed Lee Kum Kee company was born.
Traditionally, oyster sauce is made by slowly simmering oysters in water until the juices caramelize into a thick, brown, intensely flavorful sauce. Today, many shortcuts have been made to create a similar flavor more quickly and at reduced cost. Oyster sauces today are usually made with a base of sugar and salt and thickened with corn starch. Oyster extracts or essences are then used to give flavor to the base sauce.
It is commonly used in noodle stir-fries, such as chow mien. It is also found in popular Chinese American dishes such as beef with stir-fried vegetables. Oyster sauce can also be used as a topping for some dishes.
But what if you get to the store and cannot find any? If you mix soy sauce and hoisin sauce at a 1:1 ratio, the result will be close enough to oyster sauce to get you by.
Popular brands include Wok Mei Gluten Free Oyster, Sauce, Dragonfly Premium Sauce, Lee Kum Kee Oyster Sauce and Maekrua Thai Oyster Sauce
ASIAN SAUCES/BLACK VINEGAR
An inky-black vinegar aged for a rich, mellow, malty, woody, and smoky flavor. It was first popularized in East Asia, particularly southern China. It is made from rice (sticky black) that is glutinous or sorghum, or in some combination of those, perhaps including wheat and millet. It is Dark, lightly acidic and makes it ideal for fatty, plush dumplings. It is a great way to add acid to compliment dishes that have a soy sauce base. It is also use it to “brighten” stir-fries and hot dishes, such as spicy chili noodles that have pickled cabbage, cilantro, scallions, and chile oil. Although you will see some recipes call for balsamic vinegar as a substitute, know that balsamic tends to be sweeter and not as mellow.
Tamari Made mainly in the Chūbu region of Japan, tamari is dark in appearance and rich in flavor. It contains little or no wheat. Wheat-free tamari can be used by people with gluten intolerance. It is the "original" Japanese soy sauce, as its recipe is closest to the soy sauce originally introduced to Japan from China. Technically, this variety is known as miso-damari, as this is the liquid that runs off miso as it matures. The Japanese word tamari signifies "to accumulate", referring to the fact that tamari was traditionally a liquid byproduct made during the fermentation of miso. Japan is the leading producer of tamari.