Ever realized that the soy sauce used at a premium Japanese restaurant has a different taste? Not at all, it is smoother and tastes less salt. It appears as if, with a fresh slice of tuna or salmon, it is just a match made in heaven. You are not just imagining. The cause is effortless. The soy sauce being used is not the same as the all-purpose one that you have in your kitchen.
The first thing to know is straightforward. The soy sauce served with sashimi is a meticulous selection. A master sushi chef is crazy about every single thing. This is true of the rice temperature and the fish freshness too. The same applies to the soy sauce.Using a standard high-salt soy sauce would be inappropriate when using it on a delicate piece of otoro (fatty tuna). It would be like adding ketchup to a great steak. It would totally overshadow the subtle, buttery flavors the chef prefers you to delight in.However, they use a special sauce which is just doing one thing: it is helping the fish. This sauce brings in a new dimension, which is called umami, like a layer of juiciness. It contributes to a balanced flavor in each bite. Grasping this concept is the major step towards understanding why Japanese restaurants use special soy sauce for sashimi. It is a vital part of their art form.
Soy sauces are not all created equally. The one sitting in your fridge and the one at the fancy sushi restaurant have very different missions.
The Brutal Truth About All-Purpose Soy Sauce
Most of us are familiar with koikuchi shoyu, or standard all-purpose soy sauce. It is a great kitchen staple. It is ideal for marinades, stir-fries, and braised dishes. Its flavor is strong, salty, and bold.Despite the aforementioned characteristics, it is not advisable to pair it with raw fish. The intense salting might, in fact, “cook” the thin layer of the fish’s surface. This is a result of the curing process that occurs. Its powerful taste can even cover up the gentle sweetness and distinctive texture of a brand new piece of sashimi.
Now, you may be thinking, what is it that makes this sauce so amazing? The master key is nothing but the having the right mixture. Now, you couldn’t imagine a high-class restaurant simply opening a sauce bottle and pouring it on food. They either mastermind their custom mix or source from a maker of the sauce exclusively for fresh fish.
One of the smartest ways to grasp the dissimilarities is to have a taste test. Seeing these sauces alongside each other, the first thing you grasp is their separate personalities. A general seasoning sauce tastes primarily of salt and hits the tongue with an immediate salty flavor. On the other hand, a proper sashimi shoyu, is more of an experience. It’s got a depth of umami plus a cluster of mild sweetness that co-operates with the food instead of working against it.Here is a simple breakdown:
The election of a specialty soy sauce for sashimi, in reality, is not merely a matter of culture. It is rooted in the principles of food science. The appropriate sauce not only spicing up food makes them better but the feeling of eating also improves through its influence.
The Umami Synergy
The compatibility of flavor is often the matter of collaboration. “Synergy” denotes that the two added components bring forth a result that is more than the sum of the individual parts. This is exactly the way sashimi and soy sauce act.Soy sauce is abundant in an umami compound called glutamate. A lot of fish species, in particular, tuna, are loaded with a different umami compound called inosinate. When the two compounds are around, they will work as a multiplier. The result is an explosion of the taste that brings satisfaction. This taste is more prominent and wild than the two elements could ever be alone.
You now understand the use of special soy sauce in Japanese restaurants for sashimi, so you can raise the level of your dining experience at home easily.
