The Great Chinese Recipe Thread! (1 Viewer)

[Lew Crippen]

Does anybody have a recipe for homemade garlic sauce?

It depends on what you plan on doing with the result. Chinese cuisine (AFAIK) does not really use a garlic (only) sauce.

However for a start you can make a very fine olive oil and garlic sauce by simply chopping 3–4 cloves of garlic and sautéing in olive oil over medium to medium-low heat until the garlic is golden. To this you can add some chopped red pepper (such as a Thai birdseye) and/or some cilantro. Don‘t add the cilantro until the very end and then just sauté for a minute more.

Another approach is to sauté the garlic until it is black and then discard the garlic.

This makes a very good sauce for a dried pasta such as spaghetti.

 

[MichaelBA]

Garlic sauce, presumably soy-based, as a garnish for sauteed or steamed vegetables -- a recipe?

 

[Yee-Ming]

such as a Thai birdseye

You just wanna torture some unsuspecting victim, right?

Seriously, that stuff is HOT! Then again, I was always a wuss when it came to chili.

 

[Lew Crippen]

You just wanna torture some unsuspecting victim, right?

To taste, Yee-Ming.

 

[Lew Crippen]

I experimented a bit—try this:

Chop a couple of garlic cloves very fine. Sauté in sesame oil (get the Chinese kind) over medium heat until golden. Depending on you love of chili, add some chopped red chilies (to taste). Add a cup of chicken broth, some oyster sauce and soy sauce (to taste, but start with a teaspoon or two of soy and a little less oyster sauce.

You might like to add splash of Mirin. Cook over medium-low heat, but don’t reduce very much. Add some cornstarch (maybe 1 to 2 tablespoons) raise the heat and stir until thick.

You can stir fry your vegetables and pour this over them.

Personally, I would add the sauce to the wok just before taking the vegetables out. I’d also add a bit of hot (heated, not spicy) oil to the wok along with the sauce, as this will give a nice glaze to the sauce.

I had a bit of a problem with this, as I normally don’t think of making some of these sauces separately, I just do them while I’m cooking.

BTW, there are several commercial products on the market.

You can vary the proportions of the ingredients to your taste and the dish you are making. More sesame oil (and garlic) and less stock will produce a much more flavored sauce, as will increasing the amount of oyster and soy sauce.