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Oyster Sauce: The "New" Pearl of Asian Condiments
By Gerry Furth
The Chinese are famous for loving jokes and puns, even in the culinary world. This can make learning about cooking sauces as slippery as their contents. Many condiments don't even contain the ingredient for which they are named. Lobster sauce - with no lobster in it- immediately comes to mind. Eel sauce or unagi has no eel; it's meant to be eaten with eel dishes.
But one sauce that is true to its name is oyster sauce or Ho yau in Cantonese. This incredibly versatile thick dark brown condiment is prepared from oyster extract. Whether as an ingredient or a side condiment, it is simply delicious and satisfying because it contains all the flavor components to do so: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umame (total mouth feel).
The ocean salty quality of oyster sauce lends its mysterious richness when enhancing beef stew with broccoli and mushrooms and stir-fried chicken, vegetables, or tofu. It can be mixed in with light soy sauce and rice wine as a dip for dim sum like har gaur cheong fun, or vegetable tempura. As a topping for steamed vegetables, it transforms a simple dish like fresh cabbage with Chinese black mushrooms or brilliant green baby bok choy into an elegant, gorgeous one.
While Chinese culinary history goes back thousands of years, the relatively new oyster sauce was invented through a happy accident in 1888 by Lee Kam Sheung, in Guangdong Province.
A farmer, the industrious Mr. Lee operated a small diner on the side. One day he was preparing an oyster stew in the kitchen and forgot to turn off the heat under the pan when he left the room. When he returned, he got quite a surprise. The first was the fragrant aroma he smelled. And instead of a burned clear oyster liquid, the oysters had distilled into a viscous, very tasty brownish sauce, leaving a refreshing ocean taste without any fishy saltiness
Lee Kum Sheung got a bigger surprise when he began using it in his restaurant. It became so popular that in 1888 he formed the Lee Kum Kee company in Macau where oysters farming was abundant.
The tasty sauce caught on all over China. By 1930 Lee opened a factory in Hong Kong and in America on each coast with the very first factory right in our own backyard in the City of Industry. Now expanded to several city blocks with high tech equipment and a line of respected seasonings and sauces, the original sauce recipe remains the same: freshly shucked and boiled down oysters enhanced with cornstarch (for silkiness), caramel (for color) and brine.
The success of oyster sauce in China was due in no small part because even though the nation's huge population exists in unfriendly or crowded geography with every available edible item used, the Chinese take pride in even the simplest dish being as tasty and authentic as possible. There is a well known saying: "authentic condiments mean authentic taste. Imitation condiments mean not much taste."
And authentic oyster sauce transforms dishes with spice and flair in both Cantonese and Szechuan cooking, and in most stir-fry sauces. The popular use of the sauce also quickly spread through Asia in restaurant and home pantries, and now holds a place of honor in Japanese, Thail, Vietnamese, Filipino and Khmer cuisines.
Oyster sauce makes an easy, delicious, one-ingredient marinade. One ounce for every one pound of protein for 30 minutes works just fine, or better yet, as an overnight marinade to tenderize without taking out flavor. The cornstarch in oyster sauce works beautifully to duplicate the characteristics of the famous Asian concept of " velvetting." This means marinating in a mixture of egg white, cornstarch, something aromatic and flavorful like wine) that makes meat that's incredibly tender when stir-fried.
Although the purer the sauce in the Lee Kum Kee or Panda line, the more expensive, each bottle contains the refreshing ocean taste and cost pennies per serving. Once opened, the bottle needs to be stored up to one year in the fridge.
Above all, don't be afraid to try cooking with oyster sauce, it's as easy as pouring dressing over a salad. Transform the simplest veggies or proteins into lick-the-plate good dishes that satisfy without dessert from the Lee Kum Kee recipes online.
Most Chinese dishes have a double meaning. The phrase for dried oysters and "good times" are exactly the same. So take a hint. Experience the good times with oyster sauce.