You have fav soy sauce?That’s sick! Story of soy sauce

The raw materials for soy sauce are soybeans, wheat, and salt.

Basically, soy sauce is made of these three. JAS; Japanese Agricultural Standard stipulates that “soy sauce uses soybeans” so nam-pla (fish sauce) used in Thailand and other countries cannot be a member of soy sauce. Wheat is broken down into glucose, which affects the sweetness of soy sauce.

There are 5 types of soy sauce

There are roughly divided into five types of soy sauce.

Type	Color	Taste	Dishes
Dark soy sauce	Dark brown	Speaking of soy sauce, this is it. It has a good balance of sweetness, sourness and bitterness.	Soy sauce that can be used for both cooking and dining.
Light-colored soy sauce	Light brown	10% more salt than dark soy sauce. Even a small amount of soy sauce can be flavored.	It is used for cooking where you want to make the best use of the color of the ingredients.
Tamari soy sauce (aged soy sauce)	Brown close to black	Rich umami and unique aroma. It sweeter than the above soy sauce.	It is used for sashimi and sushi in a limited area.
Restock soy sauce	Brown close to black	Rich umami and unique aroma.	It is used for sashimi and sushi in a limited area.
White soy sauce	Amber	It has a unique aroma, and the taste is pale but sweet.	It is used for yellow like eggs and white ingredients and soups that you do not want to color.

Dark soy sauce accounts for 80% of the distribution. Light-colored soy sauce accounts for 13% of the distribution. It is used for elegant dishes that make the best use of the color of the ingredients.

Tamari soy sauce (aged soy sauce) and Restock soy sauce are used in limited areas, often used in red and orange area on the map below. There is an impression that it is used for sashimi.

White soy sauce is thinner than light soy sauce and has an amber color. It is used for dishes that you do not want to add color to soy sauce.

There are also low-salt soy sauce and with fish/oyster broth.

Soy sauce is sweeter as you go south in Japan

It is often said that food in the Tohoku region (blue area on map above) is salty, but in fact, the sweetness becomes stronger as you go south.

Tamari soy sauce is often used in the orange and red area, it has a sweet taste. Kagoshima’s soy sauce seems to be the sweetest.

People in blue area eat salty foods because salt has a warming effect. It’s the wisdom of our ancestors.

Kagoshima’s soy sauce has become sweet for the past 60 years. Why did it become sweet? There are various theories but they seems like salty-sweet taste.

Let’s cook with the aroma of soy sauce!

When making Japanese food, there is an order to add seasonings.

1: sugar, cooking sake, sweet cooking sake(mirin)
2: salt
3: Vinegar
4: Soy sauce
5: Miso

As this order shows, soy sauce is to give the dish a lovely toasted smell basically.

This is to retain the aroma of soy sauce. Of course, this is not the case when soy sauce is soaked in simmered dishes.

Stir-fried dishes cooked over high heat can be added just before the heat is turned off to make a savory and appetizing dish!

Let’s use soy sauce well!

Do you have a favorite soy sauce?

Click here for the soy sauce dishes introduced in Vave.
(The image is Fried vegetable noodle with thick sauce(Yakisoba))