2 days Ago By [email protected] (Bobby Lewis)
A humble sauce can do a lot to bring a plate of food together, whether it be a or something more complex like . Sometimes, like with sweet-and-sour proteins, the sauce defines the dish and it's especially important to get it right. Executive Chef Kenny Leung of has a simple, five-ingredient recipe for an amazing, restaurant-style sweet-and-sour sauce.
Leung oversees a modern and sophisticated take on Cantonese dining at , in the heart of New York's Financial District. When asked by The Takeout how to make an at-home sweet-and-sour sauce, his answer was simple. "Combine ketchup, sugar, vinegar, orange or pineapple juice, and salt," Leung said.
After mixing these ingredients, you will want to cook them over a low heat and stir until the sauce thickens. After cooling, let the orange or pineapple lead your chorus of sweet flavors into the contrasting sour of the vinegar for the perfect homemade, restaurant quality sweet-and-sour sauce. Make a restaurant-grade sweet-and-sour sauce work for you There are many different ways to make a sweet-and-sour sauce, especially if one wishes to explore the regional complexities of authentic Chinese sauces.
Executive Chef Kenny Leung's straightforward, five-ingredient recipe will be familiar to American palates, but still bring a tangy, satisfying flavor. And as always, use the best and freshest ingredients for the highest-quality final product. Leung's sweet-and-sour sauce ingredients are great on their own, but you can toy around with the recipe to alter the sauce to your needs, as well.
For richer, more complex notes to the sweetness, use brown sugar — or a , which will be easier to mix in. For a milder bite to the sour part of your sauce, substitute white vinegar with rice vinegar, which has a more delicate flavor. If you want a thicker sauce, mix in a tiny amount of cornstarch slurry until you reach the desired consistency.
Some recipes also call for soy sauce, to add an earthy boost to the sweet-and-sour flavor profile. Recommended.
