Tuesday, October 05, 2010

sauce

Try this the next time you need a light sauce for a cucumber salad:

5 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 teaspoons Korean mirim (see here for the Japanese version, often mentioned on the Food Network*)
2 teaspoons sriracha
1-2 teaspoons sugar

Mix well.

Have on hand:

1 small-to-medium cucumber, washed, unpeeled
half a smallish carrot, peeled
an eighth of a small onion

Run the cucumber through a mandolin set to produce very thinly sliced disks. Julienne the carrots at about 1/8-inch thickness. Use the mandolin to slice the onion paper-thin. Toss everything together with as much sauce as you need; you might not need all the sauce. (NB: Go easy on the sugar; too much produces a nasty, cloying mouth-feel.) The tartness of the sauce will be dampened by the process of tossing it with the vegetables. Adjust the proportions of the sauce ingredients as necessary.

I arrived at the above sauce while trying to figure out what to dip some cooked fish into, but it occurred to me that the sauce would work just fine with cucumbers. I suspect you could also dribble it lightly onto deep-fried cod in place of malt vinegar.




*Based on color alone, Korean mirim and Japanese mirin can't be considered equivalents, though I think they're closely related-- a bit like Korean dwaenjang paste and Japanese miso paste.

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