Home Made sweet and sour sauce

xueta

:drool: Hmm, I'm hungry now!

The vinegar mixture will keep for weeks as it has a preservative action - think of how long pickles keep!

Another tip is to use red wine vinegar instead of brown malt or distilled vinegar. This gives a rich red colour without extra food colouring and tastes better!

Remember to bash the ginger well to release the juices before putting it into the pan and do let the sauce simmer for at least 1/2 hour. It's ready when the sauce begins to reduce and thicken as the sugar caramelises. At this point it can be cooled and stored.

To serve, bring the sauce to the boil and add cornflour to thicken. To do this mix 2 tablespoons of cornflour with a little cold water to make a runny 'paste' - pour this slowly into the boiling sauce whilst stirring all the time. Add more or less of the cornflour mixture until the sauce is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon - you don't have to use all the cornflour mixture. Yummy.

Curry_Queen

Am I right in thinking that if I add a chilli or two to that it will make a nice Kung Po sauce? ... or thereabouts

Noozan

Curry_Queen wrote:

Am I right in thinking that if I add a chilli or two to that it will make a nice Kung Po sauce? ... or thereabouts

Curry_Queen - would you like a part time job in the kitchen?

The "crispy chilli chicken/beef dishes" have a sweet and sour sauce base with chilli added.

Kung Po is same base but with a ground paste of salted chilli peppers, fermented broad beans and soya beans. If you have an oriental supermarket near you, see if you can a jar of "Toban Djan" which is a fermented chilli bean sauce, you can just add a spoonful of this to your sauce. Scrumptious!

halloweenqueen_2

Hi

My sauce seemed very vinergary! and not very sweet (nicely sour!) I measured out the amounts, would more ginger help? Can I do anything about it now?
Thanks for your help!

moggins

You could add some sugar? I always stick brown sugar in my sweet and sour, don't know why but I like it

Noozan

halloweenqueen wrote:

Hi

My sauce seemed very vinergary! and not very sweet (nicely sour!) I measured out the amounts, would more ginger help? Can I do anything about it now?
Thanks for your help!

Adding a little more sugar would help, did you add any pineapple juice in too? That dilutes the harshness of the vinegar.

Curry_Queen

halloweenqueen wrote:

Hi

My sauce seemed very vinergary! and not very sweet (nicely sour!) I measured out the amounts, would more ginger help? Can I do anything about it now?
Thanks for your help!

Eeeek! I hope you didn't just follow my scaling down of ingredients earlier in the thread as they were just the main ones and had to be taken in context of the other ingredients that Noozan mentioned, otherwise it would turn out very sour

Now the thread has been resurrected I'll have go back to edit that post in case anyone else just dipping in doesn't read the whole thread before trying it out

Curry_Queen

Noozan wrote:

Curry_Queen - would you like a part time job in the kitchen?

No thanks! LOL!

My SIL (from HK) taught me the basics many years ago but I lost the book I wrote everything down in and I've not seen her in a long time to be able to ask her questions anymore. Her family used to send me proper ingredients over too so I really miss that these days, not that it's allowed anymore cos of the new laws, but they never declared what was in the parcels LOL!

The "crispy chilli chicken/beef dishes" have a sweet and sour sauce base with chilli added.

Kung Po is same base but with a ground paste of salted chilli peppers, fermented broad beans and soya beans. If you have an oriental supermarket near you, see if you can a jar of "Toban Djan" which is a fermented chilli bean sauce, you can just add a spoonful of this to your sauce. Scrumptious!

I've managed to find somewhere online I can get that, so thanks, and also want to ask another question LOL! You're gonna get shot for giving away all these secrets

Mee goreng paste - is that what they use to make Singapore hot noodles? :drool:

halloweenqueen_2

Eek - yes I did use the original one! I did put in pineapple juice but may add some more and a drop of brown sugar! The overall taste was good!thanks!

Prudent

I am just about to start a much needed diet (moved to anew job last December which provides lovely hm food all day -but I have put on a stone)

I have to confess that I have usually taken the lazy route and used a jar. I know these are 1) fairly high calorie 2) full of additives.

Please can someone tell me how to make sweet and sour sauce?