Stop What You’re Doing and Stir the Raspberries Into the Soy Sauce

Raspberries are naturally sweet. They are always too sweet and too tart for me, but I moved into a house with so many raspberry bushes that for a long time you could check out Amanda’s Bush on Foursquare. My glut means I have a ton of stuff to play with, and I’ve been waiting all week for the first ones to ripen to explore the hunch.

Turns out I’m a genius.

I was convinced that raspberries and soy sauce could be interesting together, and they are more than interesting, they are a spicy umami bomb. The raspberries are too sweet and the soy sauce is too salty, but they pair very well and balance each other out. The taste is hard to describe, but bright without being overly sour and full of umami. I’ve always liked ponzu, citrus soy sauce, but this one makes it even more intense.

For the past twenty-four hours, I’ve smeared everything I could get my hands on with it. Fried cauliflower, pork chops, fried chicken sausage and my favorite cornmeal trout. When you combine two ingredients together, they no longer feel like raspberries or soy sauce; it’s like hitting a cymbal with a powerful slap.

Here’s how to reproduce my moment of pure genius.

Raspberry soy sauce

Ingredients

• One cup fresh raspberries
• ½ cup soy sauce

Mash the raspberries with a fork until they turn into a paste. Pour in the soy sauce and stir until smooth.

That’s all. This is a recipe. The longer it sits the better, and you can store it in the refrigerator for a week or so. Due to the ratio of raspberries to soy sauce, the raspberries will eventually turn sour, but you should be able to get pints of raspberries at summer prices over the next few months while I figure out how to keep that lightning.