Add Soy Sauce With Chunks of Onion and Ginger
Like any other culinary expert on the planet, my refrigerator is littered with jars of mysterious cucumbers, infusions and marinades. I (mostly) love them all, but I’m not afraid to play favorites, and right now, a jam jar full of soy sauce, garlic peels , chives and ginger zest is the light of my life.
The origin story is familiar: I felt lazy and accidentally did something smart. A few weeks ago, when I was cooking fried rice, I found I had a pile of onion scraps and a full compost bucket. Rather than emptying him like a functioning adult, I decided to toss these little things in a bowl of soy sauce and let everything soak while I cook the other ingredients. After just a 10-minute soak, the soy sauce absorbed a noticeable amount of garlic, ginger, and green onion aromas. It was a small batch of fried rice.
Instead of throwing away the trimmings, I decided to add more soy sauce to them, put everything in a jar, and let it sit in the refrigerator for a while to see if I could find the extraction limit. It’s been almost 3 weeks now and I haven’t found it yet; the infusion definitely gets stronger and more interesting the longer it sits, but in a good way. I think it helps that soy sauce itself is very salty and spicy – you can actually stuff it with onions without upsetting the flavor balance.
If you are cooking with a lot of ginger, garlic, and green onions, I highly recommend getting yourself a small infusion jar. It’s a great seasoning for all kinds of fried foods and marinades, but my favorite thing is to mix it with seasoned rice vinegar to make a delicious dumpling sauce (among other things).