Growing up, I had no idea there was more than one kind of soy sauce. It simply wasn’t part of my world.
As an adult, I started to notice the ‘dark’ and ‘light’ soy sauce designations. I never knew which one to pick, so I would just grab one and work with that. (And I would always have forgotten to look it up by the time I had gotten home.)
Well, this week I actually googled it, and learned some really interesting stuff!
The reason my stir-frys took on a musty colour? I was using dark soy sauce when I should have been using light.
And dark soy sauce? Well, it’s clear there’s a whole wealth of culinary possibility with stew-like dishes.
I know I’m only scratching the surface of this amazingly complex foodstuff. And it does feel embarrassing not to have learned about this until now, but I’m sure I’m not the only one with this critical knowledge gap. (Honestly, it feels a bit eye opening about the subtle ways in which Asian culture is overlooked in the US and UK.)
I recently signed up for an online Japanese cooking course, so hopefully our kitchen will be branching out into some new flavours. (And thank goodness I got a bit of soy sauce 101 before then!)
Photo by GoodEats YQR on Unsplash