Intro to Soy Sauce
Soy sauce: a simple ingredient but often not appreciated until you can’t get your hands on the good stuff. Not all soy sauces are alike - here’s a quick overview of what’s in my pantry and how I use them!
Regular Soy Sauce: Watery in consistency, and very salty. Kikkoman is great. I like this for sushi rolls and adding a little salt to dishes when I want the umami element. (Salty, but fuller). I usually try and get the green bottle which is lower in sodium but frankly to me, tastes the same. (This you can find in just about any supermarket)
Dark Soy Sauce or Double Thick Soy Sauce: Slightly thicker than regular soy but very aromatic. There are many different brands of this variation. Mee Chun is my favorite and I use this one the most often. This type of soy sauce is quite prevalent in Burmese and South East Asian cuisine. It has a bit of molasses for sweetness and the bouquet is actually quite fragrant. I like to use this when I want to marinate meat or seafood but I can also use when making a sauce or steaming. Because it has the sweet and salty elements, I usually can skip the salt when I use this in a recipe. I also think its has a fuller flavor than soy sauce because of the sweet element. I always put in a dash to amplify certain dishes, including Shepard’s Pie and salad dressing. (In Rome, I get this at Castroni)
Sweet Soy Sauce: The thickest of the bunch: sweet, sticky and fragrant. I like to use ABC Kecep Manis (Indonesian) or Healthy Boy Soy Sauce (Thai) These are great for serving along side dumplings, noodles and grilled skewers and perfect for dipping. It is very sweet, so when cooking I usually wait until the end if I am using, for say a stir fry noodle dish it is right before its being plated, because under a bit of heat, this stuff will burn quickly! Nothing worse that putting in all the hard prep work to have an inedible meal. Sweet soy sauce acts the same way as BBQ sauce in that regard, so if you want to use on grilled meat, grill the item first and brush the sauce later - the result will be much more appetizing. (This is easily found in shops in Vittorio Emanuele)