Sauces, Seasonings, & Oils

This is a small chapter, devoted to the jars, bottles, and bowlfuls of aromatic and saucy stuff that fill my refrigerator and cupboard and populate the countertop when cooking gets underway. They are the “enhancers” of a Chinese dish, the spirit if not the soul, and every bit as important to the flavor of real Chinese cooking as salt, pepper, and olive oil is to the seasoning of Western foods. Just as most Americans require a bottle of ketchup and mustard in the kitchen, northern Chinese need their sesame sauces, Cantonese need their mustard sauces, and Szechwanese feel life to be painfully dull without a good, spicy peanut sauce close at hand. For the most part, they are simple concoctions, which one variously sprinkles, dabs, dribbles, or spreads over food. Yet they are the signature marks of real Chinese cuisine, without which an otherwise authentic and well-prepared dish tastes “nude.” For me, to send a plate of deep-fried shrimp balls to the table without a dip dish of Roasted Szechwan Pepper-Salt is like serving an undressed salad at the end of a Western meal. It’s unfinished, incomplete, and downright depressing.