Chinese Sauce

[tim]

Apart from Cornflour, what do restaurants use to get their cloying sauces?

[tim]

[Fork]

They use many different things depending on which sauce you are refering too.

Ketchup is used quite widely along with black bean and yellow bean

[tim]

Sorry, meant such as Sweet & Sour - a very coating consistency - more than I get with Cornflower.

[skintnbitter]

Hi Tim

I once made sweet and sour from fresh.

If my memory serves me right it had in it:

Sugar
White Wine vinegar
Tomato ketchup
Pinapple juice - from a can of pineapples
cornflower

and then you cooked it very gently until you reach the right consistency.

Sarah

[Baccy Man]

Most places buy it in tinned or as a packet mix these days but where they still make it the basic restaurant sweet & sour sauce recipe is:

Orange juice
Lemon juice
Red wine vinegar
Distilled vinegar
Kaffir leaf
Sugar
Red & yellow colouring
MSG
Water

Corn starch mixed with a little water

Play around with the quantities until it looks/tastes right. Simmer ingredients for roughly an hour and add corn starch at last minute.

Common variations include adding one or more of the following ingredients:
Brown sugar
Plum Jam
Garlic powder
Mustard powder
Ground ginger
Szechuan pepper
Pineapple

[tim]

Lots of good stuff there!
Is it the  reducing that makes it clingy?

For the Prawn recipe I was doing, I was starting with Ken Hom's version - Chicken Stock, Soy, Vinegar, Sherry, Sugar, Cornflower, Tomato Paste. It was too thin.

[Baccy Man]

The amount of sugar makes it clingy, think sugar syrup.

[tim]

Aha!! Hence Pineapple juice?

What with that, MSG et al - very healthy!!