Sweet and Sour Sauce

Sweet and sour sauce is the typical sauce of Chinese cuisine, great for accompanying your delicious Oriental dishes such as shrimps or chicken, or the loveliest spring rolls. Simple and fast to prepare, the original recipe of homemade sweet and sour sauce will surprise all your guests.

How to Make Sweet and Sour Sauce

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Blend cornstarch with cold water (1) until it is completely melted. Now pour the water into a non-stick small pot, add tomato concentrate, rice vinegar, sugar and a pinch of salt (2). Turn on the fire and let it heat up, until the sauce will begin to thicken. Then, immediately transfer the sauce into a cold container (3). The sauce must not be too liquid or too dense. Just find your compromise. If you taste the sauce and you feel that there is too much vinegar, just add some sugar, and viceversa.

To make a spicy sweet and sour sauce, you can add some chilli pepper: wash and finely chop half a chilli pepper, remove the internal seeds that contain too much capsaicin, and put the chilli pepper in the small pot before turning on the fire.

Origins of the Sweet and Sour Sauce

Sweet and sour sauce was born in the millennial Chinese cuisine. It was later exported by the Arabs and came to our kitchens. Sweet and sour sauce is very low cost, in fact – during the Great Cultural Revolution – the Party provided it in large quantities to the people. Being a popular sauce it is subject to change depending on the region of origin, in fact some people use honey instead of sugar, or also cloves, or ginger. Other people, instead of the tomato, use the ketchup that is already sweet and sour.