Gwen’s most excellent cooking school post reminded me of a tiny post I wanted to make about soy sauce. More specifically, my favorite type of soy sauce ever!
This, my friends, is usukuchi shoyu. If you ever have the opportunity to purchase this fine condiment, do so with great haste. I find myself reaching for this more than normal soy sauce in my kitchen.
I’ll steal an excerpt from the awesome tome “The Japanese Kitchen” by Hiroko Shimbo for an explanation. (Also, I will totally be reviewing this book at a later date. )
“The second kind of soy sauce is usukuchi shoyu, “light-colored soy sauce”. To produce light-colored shoyu, the wheat is more lightly roasted, and more salt is added to slow the fermentation. A small amount of mirin, or sweet rice wine, may also be added. The resulting shoyu is lighter in color, less strongly flavored, and slightly higher in salt content than regular shoyu, about 19 percent. Because of these characteristics, usukuchi shoyu is used in recipes when a refined color and weak flavor are required.”
I tend to prefer this sauce because it has a more delicate flavor than regular soy sauce, which sometimes is a little too strong for the presence I want it to have in dishes. However, use a light hand with it, because of the higher salt content. It will make your dish taste like you dumped a pound of kosher salt in there if you’re not careful.
Don’t confuse this with half salt or “light” soy sauce. Totally not the same thing, and frankly the “light” stuff should probably be disposed of in some sort of elaborate exorcism ritual. As with all soy sauce, pick one where the ingredients list reads something like “soybeans, water”. No high fructose corn syrup or MSG is needed or wanted.
(Also, if you’re an American whitey like myself with no proper manners, this stuff is awesome poured over plain white rice. But don’t tell anyone I told you to do it. It’s our little secret. )
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