In Chef China's eyes, soy sauce is an indispensable seasoning, a good friend in the kitchen, and the creator of various dishes' colors and flavors. But for western chefs, the application of soy sauce is a very surprising thing. In fact, when we visit western restaurants, we will find that there are basically no dishes colored with soy sauce in western countries. Why is soy sauce so easy to use, but western chefs don't use soy sauce when cooking?
Originally, in the eyes of western chefs, soy sauce is a very strange condiment. It's not that western chefs look down on soy sauce, or think that soy sauce has too low influence and poor taste, but that people in western countries know very little about soy sauce. These chefs who cook food with soy sauce basically come to Asia to learn and train cooking methods, and bring the soy sauce he needs from Asia.
The raw material of soy sauce is soybean, which is often called soybean. Soybean has a history of more than 3,000 years in China and can be eaten directly. However, if you can take soybean directly, it will easily lead to bloating, which is very unfriendly to your good friends with bad stomachs. Therefore, people in China try their best to make soybeans into bean products, such as bean curd, douban, dried bean curd, noodle sauce, soy sauce and so on. The bean food obtained by production and processing not only inherits the high nutrition of soybean, but also overcomes the shortcoming of easy flatulence.
Japanese also like soybeans. In Japan, soybean has three uses, the first is to make soy sauce, the second is to make miso, and the third is to make nattokinase. This kind of soybean food has to undergo "alcoholization". Naturally fermented soybeans not only improve the nutritional components, but also have a mellow taste. Therefore, Japanese people's daily diet is inseparable from these three foods, especially the maotai flavor made of miso.
So European and American countries have never been exposed to soybeans? Although it is absolutely impossible to say that Europeans have never been exposed to soybeans, just look at the four countries with the largest soybean production in the world at this stage, and you will understand that none of China, the United States, Brazil and Argentina are in Europe. The United States, Brazil and Argentina, three countries in China, were introduced from China and planted in China in the new century 19, and were named in the overall ranking of soybean producing countries.
Europeans' first impression of soybeans is limited to the fact that soybeans can be taken. Although Europeans know that tofu is made of soybeans, don't forget that tofu is a specialty of China, and Europeans rarely eat tofu. Even tofu with such a wide spread area rarely appears on western dining tables, let alone soy sauce brewed from soybeans, which is a unique seasoning for chefs in western countries in the East, and it is difficult to produce soy sauce in the recipes of western restaurants.
So for western chefs, what spices are used for coloring and seasoning? The answer is red wine. Red wine made from red grapes is the most commonly used condiment for chefs in western countries. Red wine can show different colors, such as pale pink, rose red, bright red, deep purple and so on. The taste of red wine is rich and fragrant, and it can bring different flavors on the premise of coloring food. Don't worry about alcohol. Under the influence of high temperature, ethanol will evaporate, leaving the taste and color of red wine.
Therefore, western chefs often don't use soy sauce when cooking, mostly because they know little about soy sauce and can't grasp the true meaning of soy sauce well. However, China chefs seldom use red wine to flavor their cooking. In many people's kitchens, red wine will definitely not appear, and only rice wine, yellow wine and pure grain wine may appear, which are used to deodorize meat or seafood and have no coloring effect.