Hoisin sauce is a thick, fragrant sauce commonly used in Cantonese cuisine as a glaze for meat, an addition to stir fry, or as dipping sauce. It is dark-coloured in appearance and sweet and salty in taste. Although regional variants exist, hoisin sauce usually includes

soybean The soybean, soy bean, or soya bean (''Glycine max'') is a species of legume native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean, which has numerous uses. Traditional unfermented food uses of soybeans include soy milk, from which tofu a ...

fennel Fennel (''Foeniculum vulgare'') is a flowering plant species in the carrot family. It is a hardy, perennial herb with yellow flowers and feathery leaves. It is indigenous to the shores of the Mediterranean but has become widely naturalized ...

, red

chili pepper Chili peppers (also chile, chile pepper, chilli pepper, or chilli), from Nahuatl '' chīlli'' (), are varieties of the berry-fruit of plants from the genus ''Capsicum'', which are members of the nightshade family Solanaceae, cultivated for ...

s, and garlic. Vinegar,

five-spice powder Five-spice powder () is a spice mixture of five or more spices used predominantly in almost all branches of Chinese cuisine. It is also used in Hawaiian cuisine and Vietnamese cuisine. The five flavors of the spices (sweet, bitter, sour, sa ...

, and sugar are also commonly added.

Name

The word ''hoisin'' is derived from the Chinese words for "seafood" (), although the sauce does not contain any seafood ingredients and is not commonly consumed with seafood. The reason for the name is "seafood flavour", a common adjective in Chinese cuisine, especially Sichuanese (" fish fragrant").

Ingredients

The key ingredient of hoisin sauce is fermented soybean paste. Some hoisin sauce ingredients include starches such as sweet potato,

wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...

and

rice Rice is the seed of the grass species '' Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima'' (African rice). The name wild rice is usually used for species of the genera '' Zizania'' and '' Porteresia'', both wild and domesticat ...

, and water, sugar, soybeans, sesame seeds, white distilled vinegar,

salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quant ...

, garlic, red

s, and sometimes

preservative A preservative is a substance or a chemical that is added to products such as food products, beverages, pharmaceutical drugs, paints, biological samples, cosmetics, wood, and many other products to prevent decomposition by microbial growth or by ...

s or coloring agents. Traditionally, hoisin sauce is made using toasted mashed soybeans.

Uses in regional cuisines

Cantonese cuisine

Hoisin sauce is used in Cantonese cuisine as a marinade sauce for meat or as a dipping sauce. Hoisin sauce can be used as a marinade sauce for meat such as

char siu ''Char siu'' () is a Chinese, specifically Cantonese–style of barbecued pork. Originating in Guangdong, it is eaten with rice, used as an ingredient for noodle dishes or in stir fries, and as a filling for '' chasiu baau'' or '' pineapple ...

. Hoisin sauce can be used as a dipping sauce for steamed or panfried

rice noodle roll A rice noodle roll (also translated as steamed rice roll) is a Cantonese dish from Guangdong Province in southern China, commonly served either as a snack, small meal or variety of dim sum. It is a thin roll made from a wide strip of ''shahe ...

(chángfĕn 肠粉).

American cuisine

Hoisin sauce can be used as a dipping sauce for

Peking duck Peking duck is a dish from Beijing (Peking) that has been prepared since the Imperial era. The meat is characterized by its thin, crispy skin, with authentic versions of the dish serving mostly the skin and little meat, sliced in front of the di ...

and lettuce wraps. Hoisin sauce can be used as a dipping sauce for moo shu pork. File:Hoisin_sauce.jpg, Hoisin sauce on a

wrap File:JueCheungFan_with_sauce.jpg, Plain cheungfan with hoisin sauce and sesame seed sauce

Vietnamese cuisine

In Vietnamese, hoisin sauce is called . It is a popular

condiment A condiment is a preparation that is added to food, typically after cooking, to impart a specific flavor, to enhance the flavor, or to complement the dish. A table condiment or table sauce is more specifically a condiment that is served separat ...

for , a Vietnamese noodle soup, in southern Vietnam. The sauce can be directly added into a bowl of at the table, or it can be used as a dip for the meat of dishes. In , hoisin is typically accompanied by Sriracha sauce or . The hoisin sauce is also used to make a dipping sauce for Vietnamese (often translated as 'spring roll') and other similar dishes. In cooking, it can be used for glazing broiled chicken.

References

External links

More about hoisin sauce and recipes

What Are the Origins of Hoisin Sauce from realclearlife.com
{{Authority control Chinese condiments Chinese sauces Vietnamese cuisine