I’ve been looking at some recipes that use both “light soy sauce” and “dark soy sauce”; online, I found the name 老抽 for dark soy sauce and 生抽 for the light, but I haven’t seen those names in supermarkets here. Oh, and then there’s tamari soy sauce. What are these called here, and is it something I even particularly need to worry about? (Thus far, if a recipe calls for 1 tbsp of one and 2 tbsp of the other, I’ve just used three tbsp of whatever’s currently in the fridge.)
For that matter, in light of recent food scandals, recommended soy sauce brands would also be nice.
Thanks!
“Appendix”: here’s what Fuscia Dunlop has to say about sauces in Every Grain of Rice:
[quote]Light and dark soy sauces (sheng chou and lao chou) are the standard seasonings in Chinese cookbooks in the West, but reflect a recent Cantonese influence; in many parts of China, cooks traditionally rely on one tamari-type soy sauce. I’ve suggested light and dark soy sauces for most recipes because they are widely available, but a good tamari can be used in place of light soy sauce. Always buy those that are naturally brewed or fermented. Light soy sauce is used primarily as a salt-savory seasoning and is the more widely used; it is also saltier in taste. Dark soy sauce is used, in very small quantities, to lend a rich, dark colour to dishes. . . .
Tamari soy sauce: Made from fermented soy beans, usually without wheat, this is closer to the traditional soy sauces of Sichuan and the Southern Yangtze region than the light and dark varieties. It has a richer, more balanced flavour than most light soy sauces as well as a slightly darker colour. I use the Clearspring version, found in health food shops and some supermarkets. If you are using soy sauce in recipes where it stands out as an ingredient, for example in a sauce or a dip, I strongly recommend using tamari soy sauce.[/quote]
[quote=“Tempo Gain”][quote=“Tempo Gain”]
Jinlan, Jinlan! No idea what the heck is not made with crap out out of a ditch, but I like the purple one.[/quote]
oops I meant Kikkoman.[/quote]
Yeah, it’s a Kikkoman Purple that’s in the fridge right now. I have absolutely no idea how I settled on that one at some point in the past, nor I am entirely clear what the differences are between all the various Kikkoman colours.
I checked the Lee Kum Kee website. American website has the soy sauces you want. Hong Kong site also. The Taiwan site. Nope. Lee Kum Kee labels their bottles using the characters you want. Maybe give their Taipei office a ring?
I talked to the boss of a shop in Ximending in Taipei that specializes in soy sauce and sesame oil. Kikkoman’s is made from soy beans. Some Taiwan soy sauces are made from black beans. There are several black bean soy sauce producers in Yun Lin county around Hsiluo on the coastal plain. I’ve looked at the labels of some Taiwan brands and sure enough, they are made from black bean. The climate must not be suitable for soy bean production.
Didn’t ask about the light/ dark soy sauce thing. I’ll copy the characters and ask next time. I did ask him about the different black bean soy sauces and soy sauce pastes. He told me that the cheaper the soy sauce, the shorter the fermentation time. I guess it would be kind of like wine or whiskey. You pay for aging. I saw one brand of Taiwan soy sauces that ranged in price from from around $70NT to over $300NT per bottle. The price differences depended on the length of fermentation. olong.com.tw/english/Product.aspx On this link you can see the different grades of soy sauce/paste. Spring to Winter. Different seasons denote different aging times. No prices are listed, but I believe these are the bottles that run from 70 to 300nt. They also produce a Japanese style soy bean soy sauce.
I also asked him about the thick sweet soy sauce paste that is poured over blanched greens in restaurants. He said that restaurants mix crystal sugar and soy paste to create their own soy paste condiment sauces.
I think we can safely say that when cooking Asian food, the type of soy sauce you use is important if you want “authentic” regional flavors. A closer inspection of soy sauces at the supermarket revealed that the Japanese brands have the “lighter” dipping soy sauces, but Taiwan brands don’t. Has anyone ever noticed that Taiwan dumpling shops use dark black soy sauces, yet at a Japanese restaurant you’ll find a browner lighter soy sauce, presumably made of soy? I can remember that as a child I could taste how the soy sauce on the tables at the old Cantonese restaurants was totally unlike the kikkoman we used at home.