5 ms·
I grew up on kikkoman, view it as the soy sauce equivalent of Heinz ketchup or Best Foods/Hellmans mayonnaise and still cook with it all the time. But after tas
by GloriousKoji 1y ago
I grew up on kikkoman, view it as the soy sauce equivalent of Heinz ketchup or Best Foods/Hellmans mayonnaise and still cook with it all the time. But after tasting a wide variety of soy sauce I would describe kikkoman's profile as salty, metallic and stout-beer like. The fancier soy sauces seem less salty (despite similar amounts of sodium) and can have varying notes of oyster sauce, seafood, sweetness, coffee, molasses and MSG.
- etblg 1y agoAre there any brands of soy sauce that could be commonly (even if its in an Asian market) found in the states that you would recommend?
- tpm 1y agoOne that we use at home and could be available is the Sempio 'green' soy sauce with 25% less salt. https://en.sempio.com/product/soysauce/view/605 https://en.sempio.com/product/soysauce/view/605
- shawn_w 1y agoPearl River Bridge makes pretty good Chinese style soy sauces and seems readily available, at least in the PNW. I use the light and dark sauces a lot in cooking.
- AdmiralAsshat 1y agoI started buying Kikkoman's "whole bean" soy sauce (I don't remember what it's called in Japanese: maroyaka?), because I found a local Asian mart carried it, and it was reasonably priced. Seems you can find it on Amazon these days, even: https://www.amazon.com/Kikkoman-Maroyaka-Sauce-33-8-Ounce-Pack/dp/B0046GFTD2?th=1 https://www.amazon.com/Kikkoman-Maroyaka-Sauce-33-8-Ounce-Pa... Haven't compared it side-by-side with the normal stuff, but anecdotally it tasted a little more mellow to my palette, and I will probably continue using it moving forward when my 1L bottle runs out.
- steveBK123 1y agoNot sure about using Heinz ketchup as an example. To me there are cheap ketchups that taste worse, and fancy yuppie ketchups that taste different for 2-5x the price, but nothing really tastes genuinely better. Ketchup is like a staple unobjectionable thing to stock in the fridge for kids/guests/comfort. Stocking a weird one kind of defeats the purpose. I'd rather try various steak / bbq / teriyaki / whatever sauces that set out to be categorically different.
- Spooky23 1y agoYes! Heinz is coke. Hunts is Pepsi. Everything else is usually lesser.
- steveBK123 1y agoYes for me theres a whole variety of low-brow staple packaged processed foods I think we've all sort of imprinted upon a certain flavor profile growing up. I'd rather explore entirely other flavors/categories than spend 4x on some fancy knockoff to signal I'm low brow high end. Extremely diminishing returns, and mostly just tastes different. I don't need a $4 replacement for a Coke or a $5 Mac-n-cheese or a $10 bottle of ketchup. Honestly we should all be buying less of these processed foods, not going further upmarket with them.
- badc0ffee 1y agoDon't forget French's (is it the RC Cola of ketchups?)
- steveBK123 1y agoI never knew it and will immediately forget it lol
- Spooky23 1y agoYES! Citi Field used to serve French’s. Which is odd because they were doing Mike’s mustard… money talks I suppose. My son who was little was like “dad, there’s something wrong with my hot dog.” I tried it, and yes, something was terribly wrong. That stuff tastes like they put tomato flavor in strawberry jam.