Oh you saucy boy you..
This ratio changed my Asian sauce game
The one thing I love about cooking is discovering new things, ingredients, methods, flavours and combinations the list goes on. I may have been a chef for almost 20 years but that doesn't mean I know everything about food and inspiration is everywhere!
This week, I am going to show you a little saucy number; it's something I use all the time when making Asian-style dressings. I have refined my own way of making this over the years but after seeing this video on Food 52 - link here I just keep coming back to it. So that's whats to come later, but less about the saucy stuff more about me!
Whats been going on….
well what hasn't! I feel like it is the season of talking about things so I've been recording more of our wonderful podcast Stuffed. I've also appeared on a couple of other peoples Podcasts - Private Parts which came out on Friday. If you want to hear about my fruity past then go get involved.
I finally got to catch up with What Willy Cooks - as you can imagine we got on like a house on fire and we have plenty of bits planned together for when he returns from his travels!
Get ready Supper Clubs are coming to the studio…
As you know i’ve recently given the studio a bit of an upgrade and I now have a table that sits 6/8 people. It's been a bit of a dream of mine to get people involved with what I do in real life, I am a people person and nothing beats sitting around a table with a bunch of lovely people eating great food and putting the world to rights!! So I've been talking to my mate Tom Gilby about doing a supper club with loads of vino! Before we do that together, I am going to test out my little set up and do a solo cook up and I need some Guinea pigs. You wonderful people have made the effort to come hang with me over here outside of the chaos of socials and I really appreciate it, so this is only going out to you. So keep your eyes peeled on your inboxes as I will be announcing the date soon!
WIP SET UP
hahahha it looks so shit - but it will be fun! I promise! What can’t a couple of candles and some shots sort out!
Get rid of your restrictions….
During lockdown when everyone was starting their online journeyI can happily admit that I was burnt out! I had already been working from home for the last 5 years, developing recipes and frankly was pretty bored of it as my parameters were strict! I was creating “healthy fitness meals” and to be honest once you have written 200+ recipes there are only so many different combinations and ways of cooking a protein and a carb! I felt like I was losing my spark! I tell ya what got it back… getting rid of all restrictions! cooking dishes I have never cooked before, tasting ingredients I had never used and just turning into a bit of a mad scientist whilst documenting it on TikTok!
And this is where I am now… sharing with you my love for cooking which I hope will inspire you to have a wonderful time in the kitchen, cooking banging food and wasting less and saving your self some pennies to boot! ! EAT THE FOOD YOU BUY!
Here’s one of my fav Tik Toks from back in the early days…..for a laugh.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
STUFFED PODCAST
New Youtube worth a watch
Recipe
So this Asian Vinagrette is the nuts.. It was pitched as a cold Asian dressing but I have used it all over the shop, I have thrown it through stir fries, made dressings, warmed up for dips, used it as a marinade for some pork or some eggs its just a bloody wonderful well balanced dressing that can go in sooooo many directions! So here we goooo two ways you can use this little saucy number……
PS: you can have this recipe for free this month
But next week I am going to show you where I used these sauces - see what I did there…
So next week the sauce went with:
Okonomiyaki
Tempura greens
Ingredients
Light Soy Sauce
Veg/sesame Oil - see notes
Vinegar - see notes
Sugar/sweetness - see notes
Sesame seeds
Smoked chilli
Method
All you need to remember is 3:3:1:1 - pick a measuring instrument it could be a table spoon, tea spoon, mug, bucket you name it. Then just do 3 measures of soy, 3 oil, 1 vinegar and 1 sugar.
That is it - it is so well balanced its just a thing of joy!
Sauce 1: Adding a flavour layer
For this one I added some toasted sesame seeds and some smoked chilli from Spice mountain as it doesn't really change the balance of the sauce just add’s an extra layer of flavour!
Check the notes as I will show you where this can be pulled apart sooooo much! Think of the 3:3:1:1 sauce a base then just add whatever flavour you want!
Chef notes:
This recipe is a perfect example of a base recipe, it is wonderful as it is but why not add more.
Things I have added: Peanut butter to make a satay style dressing
Your classics garlic, ginger and chilli
Really dark toasted sesame seeds
Try different vinegars, rice vinegars add a super unique edge
Try different oils: sesame oil, peanut oil, veg oils
The sweetness can come from loads of places: honey, molasses, sugars etc
I am sure yo could bash some lemongrass through the sauce
Add something smoked through the sauce.
Why not make a cornflour slurry and thicken the sauce so you have something you can drizzle over salads!
Sauce 2 - The experiment
So with this i used the same principle as the 3:3:1:1 but instead of adding sugar I found a tangerine in my bag and thought why the bloody hell not.
Ingredients
Light Soy Sauce
Sesame Oil - see notes
Vinegar - see notes
1 Tangerine
Gochugaru chilli flakes
Method
1 - I simmered the chopped tangerine with soy and vinegar with a tiny bit of water to just help soften the tangerine so I could mush them up! I simmered for 2-3 minutes and extracted as much of the natural sweetness and flavour from the tangerine.
2 - Orange and chilli is such a good combo so I added in some Korean chilli flakes allowed to steep for a little then pressed everything through a sieve.
3 - I picked up a random bit of information once that you shoudlnt cook/fry with sesame oil which I ignore most of the time, but I had the comment ringing in my ears when I added just a little splash of sesame oil to the sauce!
This sauce was soooooo good the extra juice from the tangerine took a bit of the intensity out of the sauce but added a really unique flavour.
