Notes On Soy Sauce
I was lecturing Tim in this comments thread about a chicken recipe I came across recently and shared with my adoring commentariat. And I was rambling on about soy sauce and I thought bugger it, why am I wasting this top quality material in a comment thread - this could be a whole discrete post! Only a blogger knows the feeling. So here it is, folks. What you need to know about soy sauce.
Okay, all right, to be honest, there isn't that much to pass on, but here it is anyway...
*Look at the ingredients list of the soy sauce you're thinking about buying. It should consist of soy beans, water, wheat flour and salt. That's it. If it has some kinda hydrolyzed protein shit in it or any other weirdness, that's the mark of an inferior sauce. Desist. Kikkomans, the most widely-known soy sauce, gets a pass.
*Soy sauce goes stale. Remember this when considering storage options. Once opened, most people leave their soy sauce on the shelf at room temperature. This is not optimal. Storing it in the fridge will keep it fresher (much) longer. Since most Australians require a couple of years to work their way through a bottle of soy sauce, it's gonna be starting to taste pretty shitty after a few months at room temperature. When soy sauce goes stale, it becomes just like salty brown water. It loses complexity. You'll see what I mean if you compare fresh sauce to the shit that's been sitting in your cupboard for the past half decade. Look, just keep the fucker in the fridge and stop quibbling. And replace the bottle after...say...a year.
The end.
Okay, all right, to be honest, there isn't that much to pass on, but here it is anyway...
*Look at the ingredients list of the soy sauce you're thinking about buying. It should consist of soy beans, water, wheat flour and salt. That's it. If it has some kinda hydrolyzed protein shit in it or any other weirdness, that's the mark of an inferior sauce. Desist. Kikkomans, the most widely-known soy sauce, gets a pass.
*Soy sauce goes stale. Remember this when considering storage options. Once opened, most people leave their soy sauce on the shelf at room temperature. This is not optimal. Storing it in the fridge will keep it fresher (much) longer. Since most Australians require a couple of years to work their way through a bottle of soy sauce, it's gonna be starting to taste pretty shitty after a few months at room temperature. When soy sauce goes stale, it becomes just like salty brown water. It loses complexity. You'll see what I mean if you compare fresh sauce to the shit that's been sitting in your cupboard for the past half decade. Look, just keep the fucker in the fridge and stop quibbling. And replace the bottle after...say...a year.
The end.
posted by James Waterton at 12:18 am
4 Comments:
I cleaned out my grocery cupboards in December some time, and ended out chucking about two large garbage bags of food-stuffs. Pretty disgraceful. Worse is that I only have a tiny little amount of kitchen cupboard space and wouldn't have thought I even owned a couple of bags full of food-type groceries at any given point in time.
The most amazing thing I discovered: did you know that RICE has a use by date? It does, and mine had long since expired, along with nearly everything else in the cupboards.
I should give you my recipe for suki yaki - we learnt how to make it in primary school, and it has soy sauce in it. Very simple recipe too.
I too have to admit I'm a bit like you Caz. I had to throw out a substantial amount when I cleaned out my cupboards as well!
Trouble with me though, is that I am a hoarder. It's a terrible afflication mate.
Can't seem to throw any thing out.
Heck I have clothes that I have kept that are 10-15 years old( Never know when they might come back in to fashion I think to myself!!)
The upstairs storeroom is full of all my stuff. I'm scared to go up there.
No really!
Old books . Old Magazines. Old movie posters .Old games.Old guitar....
Heaps of stuff.
Notes, letters cards of sentimental value.
I just find it very hard to part with anything.
* Sigh*
You should see my kitchen cupboards at the moment Kath (after the big-clean of '06): they look like a little kiddie supermarket, with little cans of tuna neatly lined up together, soups, fruit, biscuits, packet stuff, coffee, condiments, spices, and so on - everyting in neat and appropriate lines. If I visitors I could swing open the cupboards for them and they'd feel the urge to browse and buy.
Never throw out your old Soy Sauce, it cleans your copper like magic and so easy, just put some sauce in a container and sit the copper article in it and leave a while then rinse off and polish it, you will be surprised. It is super for cleaning the bottoms of saucepans after cooking, use the same method as above.
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