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Sunday, July 23, 2017

SOY SAUCE WATERED DOWN

Soy sauce. You've all had it by now right? Go to a ramen joint, and there it is, that clear bottle with that dark colored liquid, with that red cap. Have a bowl of good ramen, you add a little dash of it and away you go into ramen orgasmic ecstasy. Growing up soy sauce or (shoyu) was a go to condiment as well as marinade. I put soy sauce on everything. Mom made sunny side ups, it was soy sauce at the ready. Dad cooked us pork adobo, though it was salty enough, I had the soy sauce at the ready Freddy! And I mean I used to pour a quarter of that bottle on everything. Kikkoman was the brand, and ask anyone in my age group or older, that stuff came in metal rectangular containers and not plastic like today. When the thing was empty, we'd cut it out to use as dust pans, or Tahitian drummers used it to make a great sounding drum, though it would get beaten to hell. And as a mayonnaise fan, man soy sauce in mayo, that mix was the bomb on fried fish, or chicken sandwiches. It's amazing I didn't have a quad by-pass yet. 

So what is soy sauce? It is made from fermented soybean paste, and manufactured into the dark liquid we see in many an Asian food dive. Simple right? Don't get me looking into it, that's boring. We have it, we can buy it, that's all you need to know. Shit, go check out Alton Brown, he must have all the fucking answers. Anyhoooo, on with this condiment.

A lot of people with gout, or hypertension need to minimize the use of this sauce, because it is salty and sodium filled to kill. I've heard of stories where guys getting drafted would drink shit loads of it so their blood pressure was raised so much so that they couldn't pass the physical. Cowards! Nah just kidding, if I got drafted I really don't know man. Canada? Nah. I'd go. But it's freeeeeking salty man. Even the marketed Low Sodium versions are salty. I find it best to buy regular soy sauce, any brand you like, and just add water to it, and taste it. Too salty add more water, too watery add more soy sauce it's simple as that. 

So what this blog is really about is eating healthy, watering down a soy sauce can still give you joy in eating your favorite chow fun, meat jun, or ramen. Keep it healthy, don't be too salty if you get my drift. Haha. And here's the thing, let's say you invite people over to your cookout, and you're making Korean BBQ ribs, and your uncle Tom has high blood pressure, well, make him a marinade that is watered down, you can cut that sodium level by more than 50-75 % for sure, and you can still taste the soy sauce. Seriously. I should be a soy sauce sommelier. Haha.

Good luck eating healthy guys.
A table setting soy sauce from Kikkoman



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