Apart from Cornflour, what do restaurants use to get their cloying sauces?
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
Sorry, meant such as Sweet & Sour - a very coating consistency - more than I get with Cornflower.
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
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
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.
The amount of sugar makes it clingy, think sugar syrup.
Aha!! Hence Pineapple juice?
What with that, MSG et al - very healthy!!