What is soy sauce?
Soy sauce is an Asian condiment which has a umami taste. It is popular all over the world now. We call it Shoyu in Japan. Soy sauce recipe is originally made from soybeans and wheat. After that they add salt and fermenting agents or molds. Most common fermenting molds are
Aspergillus sojae molds orÂ
Aspergillus oryzae. People usually consume this sauce with noodles, rice, sushi and vegetable dishes.
Do you know the origin of shoyu? It came way back from China, around 3,000 years ago. Further people say that it was used many years ago in Japan, Korea and some other Asian countries. And it also came in Europe in 1730’s from Japan. There are three kinds of soy sauce recipe i.e. dark, light and thick soy sauce. You can make the recipe of soy sauce in two ways. Either traditionally or chemically. Chemical sauce is much cheaper and faster to make than the natural one.
how do they make it?
They make the traditional soy sauce with a mixture of soybeans, wheat, mold and salty water. They ferment it for six to eight months. Then they press it and the pasteurization of soy sauce liquid is the next step. Finally they pack the sauce in bottles.
Chemical method is quick and cheap but the original is much more tastier. They make this one by hydrolyzing soy proteins with acid and heat. It also contains some toxic compounds. And it contains some additional flavors and colors.
Caramel soy sauce
Here, in this version of shoyu, we will use sugar as our base ingredient. Then we will add salt and vinegar. It is an Alternate or Substitute of
soy sauce. It is really very easy to make. You can also call it caramel sauce and it resembles the original one quite much. You can use it whenever you want to have soya sauce but can't get it. Let's see how we can make it.