August 10, 2005
Ground Work: Pantry Neccessities 101b - Savory Sauces
Here’s the latest installment of the ingredients series (I’ll get back to tools in a bit), this time covering savory sauces and condiments. Again, this is nothing like a definitive list- this is just what I love and use frequently. You know what soy sauce tastes like. You know what worchestershire sauce tastes like. I’ll be covering things you may never have eaten (or, at least, known you were eating).
First, I’ll cover what I currently consider to be the holy trinity of savory sauces. With these in your arsenal, well, it’s simply going to get difficult to cook things that don’t taste wonderful. For real.
1. Bragg’s Liquid Aminos - Don’t let the vitamin-store name or the hippy-dippy label scare you- this stuff should be called “Bragg’s Liquid Gold“. It has a flavor that inhabits the same neighborhood as garden-variety soy sauce, but remains distinctly different. The advantages are that it doesn’t scream ASIAN FOOD like soy sauce does, and if you overdo it a bit, you won’t get the bitter tang that too much soy curses a dish with.
Bragg’s is the very essence of savority, and also a good, controllable source of salt. More times than I can count, a dish that’s nearly there but is missing a certain something has been given a luscious, warm sheen with a couple of squirts of Bragg’s. It has an almost-perfect ratio of savory, salty, and sweet, so instead of yanking a dish’s flavor in a certain direction, it simply gives you more flavor. In fact, it was really my most treasured secret weapon before I got into Thai food and discovered:
2. Thai Fish Sauce (Nam Pla) - My dad used to use fish sauce in a dish he cooked for himself when I was a kid. I used to have to leave the room when he cooked it because the fish sauce smell was too much for me. I had NO idea why anybody would subject themselves to such nastiness. He loved it! So for years, I looked at the bottles of fish sauce I saw on shopping trips with heavy distain. Then, I tried to make a couple of thai curry dishes with little or no information, from premade curry paste.
It was so simple, said the packages- just add a can of coconut milk, some meat/seafood/tofu/whatever, and cook, then eat! Wonderful! Apart from the taste, that is. It was searingly hot, had no depth, no sparkle. It tasted like Thai curry cardboard. Yeck.
Then I got really into unraveling what the hell made good Thai food so orgasmic, and found out that one of the major cornerstones of the flavor of such dishes was none other than FISH SAUCE! I steeled my nerves and fought my instincts, and picked up the nicest-looking bottle I could find. You wanted sauce with a light color, totally transparent, the sites I scoured for info told me. I thought back to the stuff my dad got from safeway- it was sort of inky black, like dark soy sauce.
I took it home, slapped together some premade curry paste, coconut milk, tofu and veggies in my wok. As it cooked, I tasted it. Bleh. Again I got my courage up and poured the suggested 3 tablespoons of Nam Pla into the wok, followed by a generous squeeze of lime juice. BLAMMO!!
The effect was like gazing at a painting first through a sheet of vaseline-smeared glass, and then without obfuscation. All of a sudden, the food tasted like something from Thep Phanom (great SF thai place) on a particularly good day, whereas before it tasted like dull-ly spicy coconut milk. I just couldn’t believe it. I’d begun to crack the code!
Fish sauce does smell like fish before it’s cooked. Once cooked, the aroma largely disappears and you’re left with a flavor that is at once burnished and sweet, sharp and piquant, pungent and fresh. It works wonders on everything from tacos to falafel to soup to hummus (really!). It’s the perfect counterpart to Bragg’s warm, comforting glow- and in fact, they go great together. The best brand I’ve found so far is Golden Boy brand, identifiable by the strange-looking baby on the label, sitting on a globe with a huge bottle of sauce in its hand. You need it.
I also chop small Thai chilies finely and add to a separate squeeze bottle of 3/4 fish sauce, 1/4 rice vinegar. On the right food, this combination can (to quote a salesperson from a drum shop I used to go to) bring a tear to a glass eye. Just spectacular stuff (be sure you can take a little heat though).
3. Marmite - *kneels* Oh.. Sweet nectar of the gods.. I loved you long before any of these other intruders knocked you from your throne. I loved you long before I ever knew how to cook. I loved you in spite of jeers from friends, alienation from lovers (you do not make the breath smell yummy when eaten in the insane quantities I used to quaff, I’m afraid), and confused stares from nonbelievers. You are largely thought by many to be proof of the UK’s lack of culinary prowess, to be something only a ruddy-cheeked brit raised on you could love.
How terribly wrong they are. You’re one of the yummiest things ever! It’s just that you must be used in moderation for mere mortals to comprehend your glory.
Back when I used to eat Marmite like peanut butter, I was into extremes of flavor. I relished (pardon the pun) creating sauces that were well-nigh inedible, which produced endorphin highs from sheer heat, saltiness, and pungency. I was crazy. People hated my cooking. I have to fess up to still occasionally taking a little spoonful of the stuff straight, it still gives me the willies in the best way.
Nowadays, though, it comes in handy chiefly for adding a distinct meatiness to a dish. If I’m cooking for a meat lover or doing a dish that normally swims in beef fat or chicken broth, nothing brings that meaty point home like Marmite. I generally take a bit on the end of a butter knife (it’s thick, sticky stuff) and swirl it around in food as it cooks, taking care to not let any major globs jettison themselves from the HMS Yeast as it cruises the pan.. For the uninitiated, concentrated Marmite tastes wrong. It’s like sucking on a martian buillion cube.
Anyhow, it possesses a profound savority, an ultimately satisfying, friendly stew-like deep dark flavor (which is why it’s called Marmite, after the French stew-pots of the same name). A little-seen use for it is to create a little piece of heaven called Marmite Soldiers, a treat loved by, well, ruddy-cheeked brits (and savvy others) worldwide.
Marmite Soldiers
a. Toast two slices of bread to a medium-light brown color- I like a good sourdough for this.
b. Butter the slices generously.
c. Spread a very (VERY) thin layer of Marmite over the butter- it should look like a light-tannish-brown glaze, with a few darker spots here and there- NOT like a layer of Nutella or something, unless you’re a really stout fellow.
d. Cut the bread into strips 1″ wide. Find a comfy seat and enjoy with a cup of tea, milk and sugar please. Feel the yeasty arms of Marmitia encircle you and force you to smile widely.
So there are the three most important additions to your life I can think of. Well, not really, but they’re really critical in the quest for high quality of living, IMNSHO. Below I’ll cover a few other notables that are worth having, if not life-changing.
4. Miso - My favorite type and brand right now is the “Mellow White” grade made by Miso Masters. It comes in bulk at Rainbow Grocery (my shop of choice) here in SF. I LOVE miso in general but this one is something special. It’s creamy, sweet, politely salty, just remarkably rich. When really fresh, it has a slightly flowery aroma and a fruity tang. It’s amazing. I do the “swirl a spoonful around in the pan” trick with this as well to thicken up sauces, add body to soupy dishes, and lighten the tone of food I’ve gone overboard on with darker flavors. Keeps for a long time and is well worth having on hand.
5. Mushroom Soy Sauce - I’m having a devil of a time finding this lately but when I’ve had it, it’s struck me the way it’s struck the rest of the culinary world. I.E., it makes short work of adding wonderful meaty flavor to meat-free dishes.
6. Thai Shrimp Paste - If fish sauce makes the kitchen smell a little off, Shrimp Paste should come with a haz-mat warning label. It is remarkably skanky s***. Even people who love it (in Thailand) generally wrap a bit of it in foil and roast it over an open flame to get some of the nasty smell out before using it.
However, if you can take it (and you prepare it correctly), it adds a certain je ne sais quois to some dishes that you can’t get elsewhere. It is a standard ingredient in virtually every Thai curry paste. I just don’t like dealing with it, though, and so the last few times I’ve made paste (a wonderful process I’ll be covering shortly), I’ve replaced it with Marmite, and really noticed no reduction in yum-factor. I’m not being authentic. Sue me.
..and there we have it. Work is a little insane today so I’ll make this an only slightly way-too-long post.
(cue David Gahan voice)
..all I ever wanted, all I ever needed, here in my arms..
..meat is so very, unneccesary, it.. ..can only do harm…
..enjoy the Marmite…
-george C
Filed under: Ingredients
August 19th, 2005 at 6:27 pm
wait… doesn’t marmite have meat in it? would that then make vegemite the vegetarian version of marmite?
August 19th, 2005 at 7:23 pm
Nope, two differing, competing yeast spread products by two different companies- one being most associated with Britain (Marmite), one more associated with Australia/New Zealand (Vegemite). Both proudly proclaim vegetarian status.
Now, Bovril was the meat variety of these spreads, made of beef extract. Recently due to export restrictions brought on by Mad Cow disease, the formula was changed, and now it has joined the ranks of yeast extract spreads. It has special flavor ingredients added to try and retain the beefy taste it always had. (YECK) Beef lovers the world over are pissed off.