| Tamari is also available in most health/whole food stores, although
the kind I buy there, contrary to .1, is very dark. It does have
a stronger flavor than a common soy sauce (for example, La Choy),
and I usually use less than the recipe calls for because it's salty.
I make up the total amount of liquid with water instead.
Marinade: Tamari-Ginger Sauce
1/4 c. tamari
1/2 c. water
3-4 chopped scallions
1 tsp. dried ginger or
equivalent in fresh-grated
1 clove garlic
1 Tb. sherry
freshly ground black pepper
1-2 tsp. sesame oil
Mix all ingredients. Good for marinating chicken, tofu, tempeh.
To stir-fry:
Remove protien from marinade. Heat a few tablespoons oil in wok
until hot and stir-fry protien-stuff, a little at a time, so that
the wok stays hot and everything cooks evenly. Remove stuff to
a plate. Add more oil, if necessary, and fry the scallions and
any vegetable you like (broccoli is good). Stir fry vegetable for
a few minutes, and pour in the marinade and put the lid on. The
steam from the marinade will finish cooking the vegetable. When
the vegetable is tender, put the protien-stuff back in, mix together,
and serve. Note: if it tastes too salty or if all the marinade
cooks down, add about 1/4 c. water. For more gravy-like sauce:
Steam the vegetable separately, and add it to the cooked meat in
the wok. Pour in all but 1/4 c. marinade. Stir 1 tsp. corn-starch
into the remaining marinade, add to the wok, and stir until the
sauce thickens.
Note: Tempeh is a relative of tofu. It is also made of soy beans,
and found in good whole food stores. Tofu is like a soy cheese;
it is made of the "whey" of cooked-down soy beans. Tempeh is firmer,
more flavorful than tofu, and you can see the individual beans pressed
together in a cake of tempeh. It is usually a tan-brown or whitish
color. It is also very low in fat and an excellent source of protien.
Note 2: The sesame oil should be a dark golden color and very
fragrant. There seem to be 2 kinds of sesame oil out there, one
the equivalent of vegetable oil (no scent), and one like olive oil
(mmmmmmmmmmmmm).
Peigi
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re .0
I'm not sure I remember this correctly, but I think Tamari has
more emphasis on the wheat, rather than the soy. It comes in as
many varieties as regular Soy sauce, light, dark, etc. I have
recently found a LIGHT SALT tamari that works pretty well as a
general soy substitute for low salt diets. Most oriental groceries
will carry it, usually next to the soy sauces. I'll see if I can
remember to get the name of the light salt variety.
re .2?
The 2 different varieties of sesame oil (as Jeff Smith has said
over and over) are the oriental variety, made from toasted sesame
seeds, posessing a fragrance and color unlike the other oil, that
is usually found in heath food stores, made from untoasted seeds.
All oriental recipes use the toasted seed variety. It's not worth
adding the other kind.
- JP
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| La Choy, Chun King, and the stuff that comes from Chinese restaurants in little
plastic packages are made from hydrogenated soy protein and don't deserve the
name soy sauce at all.
Kikkoman is naturally-brewed soy sauce, the real thing, although not the best
brand available. For Chinese cooking, one canot beat Pearl River Bridge
Superior Soy (when light soy is called for) or Pearl River Bridge Mushroom
Soy (when dark soy is called for). Tamari has an equally high reputation in
Japanese cooking.
--PSW
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| Canoniclly, tamari is soy-only soy sauce, made without wheat. Shoyu
is wheat-bearing soy sauce, and is more common. But there are some
so-called tamaris that contain wheat.
(I once had a roommate with a wheat allergy, so she used only real
Soy tamari.)
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