April 5, 2009
2-way sauce
By Chris Tan
Q I normally make sweet and sour sauce using store-bought ketchup and chilli sauce.
I have tried making it with lots of tomato and sugar, but it does not taste quite right.
Do you have a recipe for the sauce? How long can it last in the fridge? Can it be frozen ?
Goi Soon Luan
A First, put the sauce bottles away. Commercial tomato and chilli sauces are loaded with sugar, vegetable gums and other things that this classic dish does not need.
Sweet and sour pork purportedly evolved in China's eastern Jiangsu region. One tourism website proudly proclaims Zhenjiang 'the true home of sweet and sour'.
But it could equally well be that our local versions of the dish are descended from lychee pork, a Fujian speciality.
This is dressed with a sweet and tangy vinegar-based sauce, but contains no fruit.
It is named for its pork pieces, specially sliced and scored so that when fried, they curl up craggily to resemble lychees.
The oldest recipes I have for sweet and sour pork sauce are also based on vinegar, sugar and water, with just a little light soy sauce to balance everything out.
As both Jiangsu and Fujian are known for their vinegar, it makes sense that the central contrast pivots on sugar-sweetness and vinegar-sourness.
You can make a sauce base from equal volumes of vinegar and white or light brown sugar, a few drops of light soy sauce, a splash of water to account for evaporation during stir-frying and cornstarch or tapioca starch to taste for thickening.
Experiment with different vinegars to find one you like. Mild, fruity kinds such as rice, cider, cane or palm vinegar work well, but stay well away from the imitation stuff.
Some Cantonese recipes give a fruity note to the sauce by adding a touch of Chinese hawthorn, via crumbled haw flakes.
Incidentally, British TV cook Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall makes a sweet-sour 'haw-sin' sauce with English haw berries, vinegar, sugar and water.
Others add chunks of tomatoes, pineapple and capsicum during the final stir-frying, so their flavourful juices add further complexity to the sauce.
Assemble the sauce base only when you make and eat the dish. Chinese sauce mixtures are so quick to put together that there is really no need to freeze them.
Also, starch-thickened sauces become watery after freezing and thawing.
No more 'ducky' smell
Q I understand that if you do not prepare duck properly, it smells gamey. Is it true that there is a 'vein' on the duck that must be removed so that the duck will not smell when you cook it?
Derek Khoo Boo Koon
A Just above a duck's tail is a preen gland that secretes an oil which the duck rubs on its feathers to clean, condition and waterproof them.
If left on the cleaned body or punctured, it can contribute a strong 'ducky' smell. Just sever the tail before cooking. Make a slightly V-shaped incision above and pointing away from the tail, so that the whole tail (or 'parson's nose', as it is called) is cut off. This helps to avoid puncturing the gland while cutting.
I have a hunch, though, that duck puts off many people not because of preen gland punctures, but simply because its ordinary flavour is too strong for them.
If that is the case, wash the whole or portioned bird well in salted water, dry it, rub it well with rice wine or rice vinegar, then rinse very well and dry it again.
Much of a duck's aroma is carried in the fat, so remove the skin before cooking. If your aim is a well-done bird anyway, render it out by steaming or slow-roasting as part of the cooking process.
Also, remember that many classic recipes veil the duckiness with sweet and pungent seasonings: cinnamon, onion and spring onion, ginger, galangal, star anise, citrus, vinegar, berries and bean pastes.
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