I am tempted to write “we Asians love our sauces” but that is not even remotely accurate, because just about every country has a sauce culture doesn’t it? If you google “sauces from around the world” the resulting lists, books, websites are a joy to browse through. Wether you are looking for that magical all-rounder or a sophisticated gourmet sauce for a special meal, you are likely to find it somewhere, and the ingredients involved also vary to mind-boggling degrees. I am particularly fascinated with anything that contains berries and wine reductions, for example, but since I don’t eat meat and am allergic to white wine, it has to be something that goes with seafood and fowl.
Sending someone to the supermarket to pick up a sauce these days is easier said than done because you can easily get lost in the plethora of choices, and depending on your supermarket, you will find several sections of sauces sorted by regions. A popular one is the sweet and spicy Asian sauce that you tend to find in every Chinese restaurant. It comes in giant bottles or even portables ones if you really can’t live without it (you’d be surprised at what some people pull out of their bags at restaurants). I personally like the Thai version best, because it tends to be much more balanced in terms of sweetness and acidity, i.e. not too sweet. Here in Europe, however, the exorbitant prices of the Asian sauces have me hesitating 1000 times before considering buying a 150ml bottle. I just can’t stomach the local prices, regardless of whether it was in Germany or Portugal. So I decided to start making my own. I mean, what kind of a recluse would I be if I didn’t homestead, right?
After much experimenting and tweaking, with the odd sensation that both my mother and maternal grandfather were looking over my shoulder the entire time, I settled on the following recipe:
Put-me-on-everything Sauce
(or the Zen sauce)
1/2 cup cider or white wine vinegar
1/2 cup water
2 Tbsp minced garlic
2 Tbsp minced ginger (reduce to 1 Tbsp if you are not a fan of ginger or replace with fresh turmeric)
1/2 cup rosemary honey (the original recipe used brown sugar)
1 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp dried chili flakes or 1/4 c chopped fresh chillis (I used the fresh chillis)
3 Tsp cornstarch diluted in 2 Tbsp water
4 cardamom pods
1 cinnamon stick
Prepare your glass jars the same way you would for jams.
Whisk the cornstarch and water to form a paste and set aside.
Bring all other ingredients to a boil and simmer for 3 minutes before adding the cornstarch paste. Simmer for another 6-8 minutes while stirring.
Remove the cinnamon and cardamom before transferring the sauce to the jars.
In case you missed it, you can also try my Mojo Verde sauce. Click HERE.
FrogDiva Thoughts 