Soy sauce
Say sauce is a representative seasoning for Japanese food. Not only for us Japanese but also for people from other countries, this sauce might be so familiar already. The dark color and caramelized aroma of this salty sauce will make your dishes distinctive. You will use this sauce mainly for adjusting the color and flavor of your dishes.
Soy sauce is made by fermenting soybeans, wheat and salt, and classified into several types according to the manufacturing process. We will introduce the best-known two types of soy sauce in this article.
Dark soy sauce/Heavy soy sauce
This is the most well-known type of soy sauce and used all over Japan. It has a dark color and a good aroma but has lower salt contained than Light-colored soy sauce about 18%. You can use this soy sauce basically in every case.
Light-colored soy sauce/Thin soy sauce
This type of soy sauce has a lighter color and aroma but has higher salt contained than dark soy sauce about 20%. This is mainly used in the Kansai area which is around Kyoto and Osaka. You can use this soy sauce to take advantage of the natural color and flavor of other ingredients, because of the lighter color and aroma.
Mirin
What is Mirin?
Mirin/Japanese Sweet Rice Wine/Sweet Cooking Rice Wine
contain salt and alcohol
substitutes
Where can I buy Mirin?
You can buy Mirin at Asian Market or Amazon.
Sake
Sake/Japanese Rice Wine
Su/Rice Vinegar
Japanese rice vinegar is made from fermented rice.
Japanese rice vinegar is a yellowish clear color, and it has a milder flavor for vinegar.
mainly used for sushi pickled vegetable
has a mellow rich sour taste