Hoisin sauce


Hoisin sauce is a thick, fragrant sauce commonly used in Chinese cuisine as a glaze for meat, an addition to stir fries, or as dipping sauce. It is darkly-colored in appearance and sweet and salty in taste. Although regional variants exist, hoisin sauce usually includes soybeans, fennel, red chili peppers, and garlic. Vinegar, five-spice powder and sugar are also commonly added.

Name

The word hoisin is Chinese for seafood, but the sauce does not contain any seafood ingredients - The sauce is not commonly consumed with seafood and its origins are unknown

Ingredients

The key ingredient of hoisin sauce is fermented soybean paste.
Beijing-style hoisin sauce ingredients include starches such as sweet potato, wheat and rice, and water, sugar, soybeans, sesame seeds, white distilled vinegar, salt, garlic, red chili peppers, and sometimes preservatives or coloring agents. Traditionally, hoisin sauce is made using toasted mashed soybeans. Despite the literal meaning, hoisin sauce does not contain seafood, nor is it typically used with it.

Uses by regional cuisine

Chinese cuisine

In Chinese cuisine, hoisin sauce is used in Cantonese cuisine as a marinade sauce for meat or as a dipping sauce.
Hoisin sauce can be used as a marinade sauce for meat such as barbecued pork.
Hoisin sauce can be used as a dipping sauce for Peking duck, lettuce wrap, and steamed or panfried rice noodle roll.
Hoisin sauce can be used as a dipping sauce in other non-Cantonese cuisine such as Moo shu pork.

Vietnamese cuisine

In Vietnamese, hoisin sauce is called "tương đen". It is a popular condiment for phở, a Vietnamese noodle soup, in southern Vietnam. The sauce can be directly added into a bowl of phở at the table, or it can be used as a dip for the meat of phở dishes. In phở, hoisin is typically accompanied by Sriracha sauce or "tương đỏ". The hoisin sauce is also used to make a dipping sauce for Vietnamese gỏi cuốn and other similar dishes. In cooking, it can be used for glazing broiled chicken.