Oyster Sauce

Let me tell you about Oyster Sauce, and the first thing you need to know: taste it before it ever touches the wok.

Dip a spoon in and taste. It is already sweet, already salty, already doing most of the work for you. Add a little, taste your dish, then decide if it needs more — that is safer than pouring by habit.

How do you choose a good bottle? Taste a drop. It should feel round and savoury, with a clean sweetness behind the salt, not sharp or bitter. Lean in and smell it — it should smell rich and savoury, not like burnt sugar or something chemical. Look at it on the spoon: glossy, smooth, pouring slowly, not grainy, not watery.

Some people say Oyster Sauce is just another fish sauce, a different bottle for the same job. No! Pick up a bottle of fish sauce and tip it — thin, runs like water, sharp at the nose. Oyster Sauce clings to the spoon, thick and mellow. Confuse the two and your dish goes wrong — too thin and fishy, or too sweet and heavy, depending on which bottle you grabbed. At 51 kcal per 100 g, the calories are nothing to worry about, but the flavour is strong. A spoonful is enough.