I think whenever I’ve bought Soy sauce I’ve just gone for whatever is cheapest and not really thought too much about it. How different can it be right? Well, wrong actually! Yesterday Chinese chef Hannah Hayes explained to me why actually only the best ingredients should be used in Chinese cookery and also which ones to choose.

You might think Chinese cooking sounds like a lot of hard work and not something you can re-create at home. In fact Chinese cooking can be very easy indeed and as long as the products you use are authentic and good quality then a wealth of recipes can be created at home. Soy sauce is actually a main staple for ingredients it would seem and now I suspect I will know what to do with mine and it won’t be the jar that sits in the cupboard for 3 years before eventually getting used up and I go and select the next cheapest bottle in the supermarket.

For a start I won’t be selecting any old bottle of Soy sauce. Hannah is working closely with the guys at Amoy and while she gave me and a selection of bloggers a cookery class yesterday she insisted there are certain things she just wouldn’t buy and would always make from scratch. She had a jar of ready made chili oil from a Chinese supermarket and let us all smell the difference between the jar and the one she showed us how to make from scratch using Amoy Special Selection Soy Sauce as one of the ingredients. It was obvious just looking at the two oils, the jar and the one we had created in the kitchen, that one was full of synthetic ingredients while the other was fresh and vibrant looking – just as you would imagine when you think of real Chinese cooking. When we got to take in the aroma I found the jar decidedly off putting in contrast to the sweet and warmth of the home-made variety.

 

So, Hannah is conscious of what ingredients she uses and she chooses Amoy Special Selection Soy Sauce over any other – speaks volumes I think! Using the chili oil that we had made she showed us how to create another delicious recipe (at the bottom of this post) and now I see why Chinese cooking can be so delicious and yet fairly easy to prepare at home. We also made egg fried rice, the most delicious chicken kebabs and a hot and sour soup which my husband absolutely devoured when we got home as a starter! I took my Mum with me and she had a fab time too, she came away very inspired to try Chinese cooking at home and with a bottle of the Amoy Soy we shall be giving it a go again! You need time, time to prepare the ingredients and cook from scratch but authentic flavours, with the right ingredients, can be created in your own kitchen – arm yourself with the right products and give it a go!

Hannah gave us lots of tips and tricks while we were in the kitchen and we had an absolutely fabulous time learning how to use the Amoy Special selection Soy sauce in other recipes to make them taste great!

It was also explained why the Amoy Special selection Soy Sauce tastes so different from others and knowing the detail behind the sauce which is authentically made in Hong Kong for Amoy, it’s easy to see why. They can trace the soya beans used to make it right back to the farm they are grown on in Canada. They are absolutely not genetically modified and the recipe uses their extract at the earliest and purest point. They are naturally brewed using a recipe which employs more than 100 years of expertise and that’s why the sauce tastes so good. We used it in the recipes but also I added more to my dishes after they were cooked to dip my chicken kebabs in and to deepen the flavour of my rice more.

I really like the gentle yet distinct flavour and could definitely tell the difference, compared to others I have tried, as being much smoother and less synthetic. I have used Amoy products in the past, namely their straight to wok noodles which are super easy to use and taste great but I think now I shall always make sure when using soy sauce that it’s this particular brand too!

Why not give one of the recipes we tried a go yourself? We made this with Hannah and it’s delicious! We brought some home for Jonny to have for his tea and he was VERY pleased! This one’s quite hot though so you might want to adjust the amounts of chili to suit your own tastes!

Hannah Hayes’ Mouth-Watering Chicken

all you need is…

2 large chicken legs including drumsticks

1/4 cucumber

Coriander to garnish

For the Sauce

4 tbl chili oil

2 tbl sugar

2 tbl vinegar

2 tbl Amoy Special Selection Soy Sauce

1 tbl rice wine

2 tbl sesame sauce

2 tbl heaped ground peanuts

1 tbl ground dry chili

1 tbl chopped spring onion

1 tbl minced fresh ginger

all you do is…

Steam the chicken for 15 minutes on each side and then rest for 10 minutes. (ensure the chicken is cooked through – we found we needed to steam it for a bit longer so just use common sense as it does depend on the size of the chicken.)

Slice the chicken and the cucumber into thin strips.

Mix all of the sauce ingredients in a bowl.

Add the chicken and cucumber to the bowl.

Mix well.

Place the mixture onto a serving plate and garnish with coriander leaves to serve.

I have not been paid to write this post.