Soy Sauce

With more than 3,000 years of presence in Asia, soy sauce is integral to all Southeast Asian cooking. In Malaysia and Singapore, more so than in Thailand and Vietnam, this is due to the high percentage of ethnic Chinese and the cuisines they have introduced. The term “brewed” soy sauce is important, yet somewhat misleading. The Chinese version of the sauce is not brewed or cooked like beer, but it is naturally fermented with whole soybeans. Thin soy sauces should never be colored with caramel color. Its presence is a sign that shortcuts were taken to achieve the dark color that usually takes months to develop as the soybeans ferment.