Hoisin sauce is a thick, fragrant sauce commonly used in Cantonese 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.
The word hoisin is derived from a shortening of the Chinese words for “seafood sauce” (simplified Chinese: 海鲜酱; traditional Chinese: 海鮮醬; Cantonese Yale: hói sīn jeung; pinyin: hǎixiānjiàng), although the sauce does not contain any seafood ingredients and is not commonly consumed with seafood.[1] The reason for the name is “seafood flavour”, a common adjective in Chinese cuisine, especially Sichuanese (“fish fragrant”).
Some 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.
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