Five Asian Sauces That Make Everything Taste Better
As a kid, I was obsessed with helping my mom cook (hard to believe, I’m sure). Although she dabbled in cooking Italian food and sampled popular ingredients in boxes of the time, most evenings were what she knew best – giant pots of Thai food and jasmine rice. My childhood of informal cooking classes taught me two things: jasmine rice goes with everything, and anything can be delicious with these five bottled Asian sauces.
fish sauce
This sauce gives you the most bang for your buck. The thin, reddish-brown liquid is made by fermenting small fish such as anchovies with salt for up to two years. The juice extracted from the mixture is a hot sauce that gives an umami flavor to everything it touches. Add a few drops to fill in the flavor profiles of your stir-fry, or use it as a main ingredient in Thai som tum salad , for example. For those new to fish sauce, just add a few drops to a hearty, multi-ingredient dish.
You will feel the difference in taste, but the fishy taste will not overwhelm you. I don’t consider myself a big fish lover and this sauce does look like fermented fish, but somehow it just works. You can use fish sauce during cooking or as a finishing sauce for meals. I like to add a few drops to hamburger meat or make us a chili and chopped garlic jim to drizzle over eggs and rice; and Claire loves to use it to spice up butter , tuna , and chili .
Whichever fish sauce you find will be the best, but if you have a choice, I love it: Squid’s signature fish sauce.
oyster sauce
The name may include another seafaring friend, but oyster sauce is completely different from fish sauce. There are several sauces that can be described as “oyster sauce” but in this case I’m talking about a dark brown sauce that is so thick it’s almost gelatinous. Oyster sauce is often made from oyster extracts, soy sauce, and thickeners and is both sweet and salty. Add a tablespoon of oyster sauce to enhance the flavor of a dish, or use a few tablespoons as the main ingredient in a sweet and spicy sauce. In the winter, I add oyster sauce to beef stew and use it to create the typical gooey chicken pad glaze.
My favorite oyster sauce: Mae Krua Oyster Sauce
mushroom soy sauce
Soy sauce might easily be thought of as just a salty condiment, but this liquid gold is as versatile as wine. I usually keep at least three different types of soy sauce on hand because they all give something different. And I need them. All of them. Mushroom soy sauce can range in color from thin and medium brown to slightly viscous and almost black. Mushroom soy sauce is made from dried black mushrooms and a light soy sauce, and while not exactly mushroom-like, it tastes noticeably earthier than standard soy sauce. I use light brown mushroom soy sauce quite extensively in dishes, or in place of “regular” soy sauce. If I want a salty, earthy flavor, I add it to a bowl of turkey chili to add depth to the tomato base.
I have in my fridge: Dek Som Boon, also called Healthy Boy Mushroom Soy Sauce.
Black mushroom soy sauce
Sometimes, if you’re already adding fish sauce and regular soy sauce to a dish, you don’t necessarily need another salty component. However, a teaspoon of black mushroom soy sauce gives the whole roast a beautiful dark brown color with a touch of sweet earthy umami and much less salt. This type of soy sauce still uses dried black mushrooms for flavor, but mushroom extracts are added to dark soy sauce rather than light soy sauce. Dark soy sauce usually ages longer than light soy sauce, and some bottles may even contain molasses. I love Pearl River Bridge’s excellent Black Mushroom Soy Sauce for its dark color and sweet taste. I like to add it to fried rice along with regular soy sauce and Golden Mountain sauce.
My favorite dish: Excellent black soy sauce flavored with Pearl River Bridge mushrooms .
golden mountain sauce
The four products I have mentioned so far are types of sauces, and you can explore different brands to find your favorite, but Golden Mountain Sauce is a brand of very special condiment sauce. The ingredient list consists of “soy sauce” made from soybeans, corn, water, sugar, and salt. The taste is salty, malty, savory and slightly sweet. It’s incredibly delicious, and it’s my favorite all-purpose sauce. I splashed it on the leftover rice and called it an appetizer. (A small dose will do this, but when I was a kid, I had to make sure there was a puddle of this sauce around every grain of rice.)
Golden Mountain Sauce is great for sautéing, as a sauce for dumplings, and goes great with eggs, but you can sprinkle it on anything to enhance the taste. If you can’t find Golden Mountain Sauce, you can try the very similar Maggi condiment, but the hunt is worth it.
Or, of course, you can order: Golden Mountain Sauce.