A Primer on Pacific Rim Condiments and Sauces

Two fish swimming head-to-tail engaged in perpetual copulation symbolize the Asian philosophical concept of yin and yang. This paradoxical premise about the dynamics and synergy of opposites is central to Asian gastronomy. It seems self-evident that chefs and food scientists should invest a lot of time and energy analyzing which stimuli creates positive perceptions by consumers -- i.e., what actually makes food taste good.

Clearly, Asian culture has found this concept worth focusing on, evidenced by its reliance on sauces and condiments. A salient and omnipresent characteristic of every Pacific Rim ethnic cuisine is the side dishes of sauces, relishes, pickled items, garnishes and dips that provide balance, contrast, enhancement and amplification of the flavors, odors, textures and even colors of the center-of-the-plate foods that they accompany. This contrast and balance of the yin and yang are the essential parameters for producing a pleasurable gustatory experience. Additionally, condiments and sauces enable the diner to customize each bite to their own taste, giving them a degree of control over the gastronomic character of their meal.

In some cultures, the offerings are standard and ubiquitous. Koreans place chili sauces, kimchee (spiced pickled vegetables) and numerous other piquant, crunchy sides on the table for every dinner meal. Japanese-style sweet pickled ginger root and crisp, shredded daikon (white radish) are ever-present as palate-cleansing agents at Japanese dinner tables.

Wasabi paste, a Japanese condiment always served -- along with good-quality soy sauce -- with sushi and sashimi (raw fish) to provide a foil to the delicate, mild flavor points of fresh seafood has become almost universally popular in the United States due to the phenomenal growth in popularity of sushi houses. Unfortunately, with the exception of very expensive sushi restaurants, most wasabi used in the United States is not real wasabi root but a mixture of mustard powder and horseradish powder dyed a light yellow-green. Authentic grated wasabi root, which features a delicate fragrance to accent its spicy bite, is rarely served in the United States, and veteran sushi connoisseurs can immediately taste the difference.

The vast variety of soy- and fish-based dipping and dressing sauces is vital to all Asian cuisines. Both the Japanese and Chinese typically serve soy sauce and vinegar and/or citrus combinations for dipping meats, vegetables, seafood and noodles. Japanese ponzu sauce can be as simple as soy and a sour citrus, such as yuzu, lemon or lime, and may be enhanced by dashi, a mixture of kombu seaweed and katsuoboshi (dried bonito flakes),   rice vinegar, black mushroom-soaking liquor, chiles, fish sauces and sesame oil. Fish sauces, such as nuac mam, and pastes, such as Thai pla kuud, also have a wide range of applications in southeastern Asian cuisines. Fish sauces and pastes are made from fermented fish and shrimp and have a strong odor that is often perceived as very foreign (read: funky) to non-Asians.   However, they are indispensable to creating the authentic flavors in Thai, Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian, Malaysian and Indonesian dishes.

A tremendous variety of chili sauces and pastes are also used by every Oriental cuisine. From the incendiary sambals and shrirajas of Southeast Asia to Korean gochu jang and Japanese togarashi, fresh chiles are mashed with mortar and pestle, dried into powders and mixed with sesame oil, sugars, vinegars, soy sauce, garlic, ginger root, galangal, lemon grass, peanuts, citrus juices and fish sauces. These amazing sensations to the palate contrast perfectly with a crunchy, lightly stir-fried or steamed bite of green vegetable or a crisp, battered, deep-fried mouthful of sweet, fresh seafood.

Like all sauces and condiments, the combinations vary from region to region and household to household. Tirk khngay is a Cambodian version used for dipping seafood and the Vietnamese version is nuoc cham. Both are combinations of fermented fish sauce, garlic, lime juice, sugar and chiles, and are served with almost every meal.

In the Chinese southern provinces of Szechwan and Hunan, the ingredients for dipping sauces are placed on the table for the diner to compose their own. Soy sauce, red or black rice vinegar, chili oils or pastes, and so on are provided on every household and restaurant table.

Various types of soy sauce are central to creating Asian sauces. As there are no USDA standards for the use of the term "soy sauce," virtually any liquid can be called that. In fact, there are many "soy sauces" on the market that don't have anything to do with soybeans. These are the typically inexpensive hydrolyzed vegetable protein sauces that are basically made chemically, by extracting amino acids with hydrochloric acid, and then neutralized.

Bona fide soy sauces are fermented and brewed products made from soybeans and roasted wheat that are made into a mash, mixed, and then turned into koji. This mixture is produced by cooking the soybeans and wheat and inoculating it with a mold, either Aspergillus oryzae or Aspergillus sojae. The koji is then left in vats to ferment and then aged in casks before bottling.

The resultant red-brown liquor is rich in amino acids, including glutamic acid, which is one of the most potent flavor-enhancing agents available to the chef or food technologist. The longer a soy sauce is aged, the more glutamic acid is formed and the more effectively it can enhance and amplify the savory flavor points of proteins and other foodstuffs.

Although we traditionally learn that our tongues and taste buds can discern only four flavors -- salt, sweet, sour and bitter -- it is now commonly accepted that the human tongue can distinguish a fifth flavor, umami, Japanese for savory. Employing a well-crafted and aged soy sauce, and its resultant degree of umami and flavor-enhancing properties, is worth the expense.

Given their similarity to beer or wine in production techniques, it is not surprising that different soy sauces have   subtle but very discernable variations in flavor profiles. Many of the 2,600 "shoyu" (Japanese for soy sauce) manufacturers in Japan offer local variations in color, flavor profile or components. Five varieties of shoyu are classified in Japan: dark, light, tamari, saishikomi (twice fermented) and white.

Tamari, mostly a misused word, has become almost synonymous with soy sauce in the United States. True tamari is the byproduct liquor resulting from the manufacture of miso soybean paste. According to William Shurtleff and Aikiko Aoyagi in "The Book of Miso," tamari is defined as a shoyu made with 85% to 100% soybeans and little or no wheat. However, interpretations of the concept of true tamari vary. To the best of my knowledge, although many soy sauce manufacturers label their products "tamari," authentic tamari isn't commercially available in significant quantity in this country. Most of the so-called tamari products in the United States are ordinary soy sauces -- some contain wheat and some don't. Although wheat-free soy sauces may not have the degree of umami of those that do employ wheat, they do have their applications when designing sauces or condiments for people with glutamic acid/glutamate or gluten intolerances.

Typically, Japanese soy sauces taste mellower than their Chinese counterparts. The Chinese use light and dark soy sauces. The light is the saltier of the two. Using a Chinese-style soy sauce helps when trying to achieve an authentic Chinese flavor profile and using a Japanese-style shoyu is best for creating Japanese flavors.

Indonesian sweet soy, kekap manis, is becoming popular and is made from Chinese-style dark soy that's intensely sweetened with caramelized cane sugar and often flavored with garlic, galangal and other pungent flavors. Basically a soy sauce syrup, it is indispensable for creating Indonesian flavors.

Authentic composition When composing condiments, it is essential that designers are aware that the flavors in onions, garlic, ginger, spices, chiles, citrus and most flavoring ingredients consist of volatile aromatics and are, as a rule, oil soluble. Therefore, the food almost always needs an oil-based ingredient to carry their flavors to the diner's olfactory senses.

Given that so many of the essential components of Asian condiments are readily available and stable, it is of paramount importance that research chefs and product designers make every attempt to use high-quality, authentic ingredients when formulating sauces and condiments for Asian foods. Although the world of food science has come close to duplicating flavor profiles, using chemically manufactured flavors and essences will never replace the real thing when it comes to ultimately producing a better sauce.

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