Sauces play a crucial role in cooking, enhancing the flavor and color of dishes. In the vast world of culinary arts, sauces are indispensable. Different sauces, with their unique flavors and effects, add a finishing touch to stir-fries.
In the cooking process, basic sauces such as salt, dark soy sauce, and light soy sauce play irreplaceable roles in seasoning and coloring. For example, to achieve the same level of saltiness, adding salt later in the cooking process requires slightly less salt than adding it earlier. Dark soy sauce is mainly used to enhance the color and umami of dishes, especially in braised dishes, stews, or marinated foods. Light soy sauce is mainly used for seasoning and is very suitable for cold dishes, as it does not mask the natural color of the ingredients and gives a refreshing feel.
Vinegar, cooking wine, and other sauces enhance the flavor of dishes by removing fishy smells and adding aroma. In cooking, vinegar has multiple functions, such as removing fishy smells, eliminating gamey odors, reducing spiciness, adding aroma, and preventing discoloration of dishes. Adding cooking wine when marinating meat can effectively remove the fishy smell.
Sweet bean sauce and fermented bean paste add unique flavors to a variety of dishes. Sweet bean sauce is often used in cooking dishes like shredded pork with sweet bean sauce and stir-fried chicken with sweet bean sauce. Furthermore, its combination with yellow bean paste in noodles with soybean paste is a perfect finishing touch. Fermented bean paste, with its unique flavor, shines in cooking and is often used to season classic dishes such as twice-cooked pork, Mapo tofu, boiled fish, and spicy hot pot.
Fermented black beans and tomato sauce bring unique aromas and flavors and are important seasonings in many dishes. Fermented black beans, with their distinctive flavor, hold a place in cooking and are often used in meat dishes such as "spare ribs with black bean sauce" and refreshing vegetable dishes such as "stir-fried bitter melon with black bean sauce." As a concentrated product of pure tomatoes, tomato sauce plays an important role in cooking.
Curry and starch play important roles in enhancing flavor and maintaining the texture of dishes. Curry, carefully prepared from a variety of spices, is spicy with a hint of sweetness. Starch plays multiple roles in cooking, including thickening sauces, coating, and marinating, effectively locking in the juices of dishes and reducing nutrient loss.
