Sweet and sour sauce - general principles and methods of cooking
What sauce to cook? Sour - too sharp, sweet - sugary, and you will not serve it to meat either. And if these tastes combine? Then you get a brand new, playing with different taste lines, sweet and sour sauce. This cheerful and sour and pleasant bitterness and sweet soft notes. There are sauces with sweet-sour taste in different cuisines - Jewish, Caucasian, but they are most common in Asian, in particular, Chinese. Lemon, apple, orange juice, sour berries most often act as an acidulant, and sweetener - honey, jam, sugar. Sweet and sour sauces enliven the blandish taste of boiled meat and are just perfect for fatty meat, making it easier to digest for the stomach.
Sweet & Sour Sauce - Food Preparation
If starch is included, it is diluted in water before being introduced into the sauce. Otherwise, the products for this sauce do not require special preparation, the ingredients are simply mixed and thermally processed.
Sweet & Sour Sauce - Best Recipes
Recipe 1: Sweet and Sour Sauce in Chinese
To try the real Chinese sweet and sour sauce, it is not necessary to go to China or visit a Chinese restaurant. It can be cooked without leaving the apartment. It is very popular not only in China, but also in our country. Its success lies in stunning taste and versatility, this sauce can be filled with absolutely everything. It will give spice to vegetables and meat and fish. Brown sugar will certainly be very appropriate, but if it is absent, replace it with regular sugar.
Ingredients: ginger root (five centimeters slice), 2 tablespoons - brown sugar, ketchup, water and soy sauce, 2-3 cloves of garlic, 3 tbsp. vegetable oil, 1 tbsp. l starch and table vinegar (6%), 1 onion, 150 ml of fruit juice (with sourness - apple, orange).
Method of preparation
In vegetable oil, fry, laying alternately, finely chopped onion, garlic, ginger. Pour in soy sauce, vinegar, add sugar, ketchup and juice. Stir and let simmer a little. Dissolve the starch in water and pour into the gurgling sauce. Bring to a boil, as it begins to thicken, turn off. Done!
Recipe 2: Sweet and Sour Meat
An interesting option for preparing a sauce with slices of pickled cucumbers. And sour and sweet and sharp, but in a word - delicious. And original. It is served directly on a plate or separately, in special sauce bowls. Cucumbers should be finely crumbled, so the recipe indicates the amount in spoons.
Ingredients: pickles - 3 tbsp., 2 tsp. starch, sugar and cognac, 0,5ch.l. ground ginger (spice) and wine vinegar (it can be table 6%), spoon grows. oil, 1 tsp tomato paste.
Method of preparation
Lightly moisten a frying pan with vegetable oil, it is not worth pouring a lot. Heat oil and put cucumbers, stew for five minutes.
In a bowl, mix the remaining ingredients and gradually add water, stirring the mass. Water will require approximately 1.5-2 cups - look at the texture, so that when the starch is brewed, it is not too thick or liquid. Add this mixture to cucumbers and simmer for about five minutes over low heat.
Recipe 3: Sweet and sour red currant sauce
Delicious, unusual and completely natural, this sauce is the best suited to boiled meat, tongue, fatty brisket. If not the season, it can be prepared without mint leaves or cherry leaves. But they bring a touch of astringency and a specific flavor. Fans of spicy food can sprinkle with a pinch of other hot chili pepper sauce.
Ingredients: red currant - 0.5 cups, water - 0.5 cups, half an average onion, creamy little - 25g, salt, a couple of cherry leaves and a sprig of mint, 3-4 peas allspice and a pair of cloves (spice).
Method of preparation
Heat water, add butter, sugar. How to dissolve, put currants, mint, spices. Simmer until the currant gives juice. Do not cover the lid, make the fire bigger.
Finely chop the cherry leaves and onions, put in the sauce and simmer. The sauce should thicken, and the onions become softer. Cook, covered with a lid, on a quiet fire. Salt
Sample dishes with Sweet and Sour Sauce
Recipe 1: Meatballs in sweet and sour sauce
The recipe for delicious meatballs hedgehogs borrowed from the Jewish cuisine. After all, sweet and sour sauce is not only China. Meat can be taken any. If there is no broth on hand, dissolve the meat or chicken cube in water. Ingredients: Meatballs: minced meat - 1 kg, rice - 0.5 cups, 2 eggs, salt and pepper. Sauce: 0,8l broth, tomato paste - 1 table. l., sugar - 2 tbsp., honey - 1 tsp. spoon, salt, a pinch of citric acid, pepper-peas, 3 tablespoons of rye table crackers.
Method of preparation
Mix minced, raw rice (no need to boil) and eggs, salt and pepper and knead. Roll up round meatballs, fry them in oil, do not need to bring to readiness, just fry.
Mix in a saucepan all the ingredients for the sauce, except rye crackers, and bring to a boil. Add meatballs and stew for 15 minutes. Now it's the turn of crackers. They make the sauce thicker and add extra sourness. Pour them into the pan and boil for another 15 minutes. Cooked meatballs with the lid closed.
Recipe 2: Chicken wings in sweet and sour sauce
What can be cooked from chicken wings? That's right, smoked, baked in the grill, reddened on the grill. It is tasty, but requires special equipment. You can still fry. It's quick, but trite, but I want something new. Why not cook them in a sweet and sour sauce? Fast, original, simple. A new taste will be added to the dish by a sauce consisting of three ingredients - honey, lemon, soy sauce. Try it, you should like it.
Ingredients: chicken wings, soy sauce, honey - 1 tbsp, lemon.
Method of preparation
Fry the wings with a little oil on both sides. Add soy sauce to the pan so that it covers the wings by a third or slightly less than half. Add honey and juice of half a lemon. Extinguish the wings until soft on low heat, occasionally turning them over. Taste the sauce, you may want to correct it by increasing or decreasing the amount of honey and lemon juice.