One of the essentials for many asian finger foods is the dipping sauce.
Here’s one of the common ones we use with spring rolls or pan fried dumpings at home.
Lemon and Honey sauce
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup warm water
- 1 tablespoon of honey
- Lemon juice *
- A few drops of Dark Soy Sauce to taste.
Optional:
- Chopped Chilli
- Julienned Ginger
Extras:
- Crushed nuts (peanuts, cashews, etc)
* Note that how much lemon juice you use depends on how sour you like your sauce. I like my sauces to be a bit more sour than most, so add more than others would (about half a mid-sized lemon).
Method:
- Start with the warm water in a small bowl, add the tablespoon of honey and mix until the honey is dissolved.
- Add the lemon juice.
- Add a few drops of the Dark Soy sauce, mix and taste it. The soy sauce should darken your dipping sauce, but shouldn’t be enough to over-power your honey/lemon/water mixture.
- If you like chilli, then add the chilli. Else just add the ginger.
- Optional Extra: In a Pestle & Mortar crush a small amount of your choice of nuts, then add this to your sauce.
Another alternative, but saltier dipping sauce.
Dark Soy and Sesame Oil sauce
Ingredients:
- 1 teaspoon Dark Soy Sauce
- A few drops of Sesame Oil
- Chopped Chilli or Julienne Ginger
Method:
- Pour roughly a teaspoon (or less) of the dark soy sauce into a small bowl or sauce bowl.
- Add a few drops of the sesame oil for flavour, and mix it in.
- Add your chopped chilli or ginger.
Tips:
- We use an Indonesian Dark Soy Sauce (also known as Kecap Manis from the ABC brand), sourced from the local asian supermarket. It’s flavour is a little bit sweet, is thicker than your regular soy sauces. The taste is different to other dark soy sauces you can buy. However, if you can’t find this particular type, try one of the other dark soy sauces.
- Also, if you want to avoid Honey, you can always replace it with a bit of Raw Sugar and dissolve that in the warm water.
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