Ah-So is a line of Chinese and East Asian American sauces and marinades from Allied Old English, Inc., Port Reading, New Jersey. This garlicky, sweet, sticky, brightly red marinade is popular in the Northeast United States. A plastic squeeze bottle version exists. This sauce falls into the American Chinese cuisine genre of Chinese cooking and aims to replicate the sweet, smokey flavor of boneless spareribs found on the menus of most Chinese take-out restaurants. The sauce contains corn syrup, fermented soy beans and garlic. [1]
The expression "ah so" comes from the Japanese ă sō desu ka? ("oh, is that so?"), which is sometimes shortened to "ah so". Although sometimes used as mock-Chinese, the phrase is Japanese in origin. [2]
Calamansi, also known as calamondin, Philippine lime, or Philippine lemon, is a citrus hybrid cultivated predominantly in the Philippines. It is native to the Philippines, parts of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei, as well as parts of southern China and Taiwan.
In cooking, a sauce is a liquid, cream, or semi-solid food, served on or used in preparing other foods. Most sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavor, moisture, and visual appeal to a dish. Sauce is a French word taken from the Latin salsa, meaning salted. Possibly the oldest recorded European sauce is garum, the fish sauce used by the Ancient Romans, while doubanjiang, the Chinese soy bean paste is mentioned in Rites of Zhou in the 3rd century BC.
Teriyaki is a cooking technique in which foods are broiled or grilled with a glaze of soy sauce, mirin, and sugar. Although commonly associated with Japanese cuisine, this cooking technique is also commonly used in other Asian cuisines such as Chinese cuisine, Indonesian cuisine and Thai cuisine.
Satay, or sate in Indonesian spelling, is a Southeast Asian form of kebab made from seasoned, skewered and barbecued meat, served with a sauce.
Seitan is a food made from gluten, the main protein of wheat. It is also known as miànjīn, fu, milgogi, wheat meat, gluten meat, or simply gluten. It is made from vital wheat gluten, a flour-like substance primarily consisting of gluten extracted from wheat flour.
Galbi (Korean: 갈비), kalbi, galbi-gui (갈비구이), or grilled ribs is a type of gui in Korean cuisine. "Galbi" is the Korean word for "rib", and the dish is usually made with beef short ribs. When pork spare ribs or another meat is used instead, the dish is named accordingly. Galbi is served raw, then cooked on tabletop grills usually by the diners themselves. The dish may be marinated in a sweet and savory sauce usually containing soy sauce, garlic, and sugar. Both non-marinated and marinated galbi are often featured in Korean barbecue. This and many other dishes in Korean barbecue influenced Yakiniku as seen in the use of galbi.
Sweet and sour is a generic term that encompasses many styles of sauce, cuisine, and cooking methods. It is commonly used in East Asia and Southeast Asia and has been used in England since the Middle Ages. Sweet and sour sauce remains popular in Asian and Western cuisines.
Adobo or adobar is the immersion of cooked food in a stock composed variously of paprika, oregano, salt, garlic, and vinegar to preserve and enhance its flavor. The Portuguese variant is known as carne de vinha d'alhos. The practice, native to Iberia, was widely adopted in Latin America, as well as Spanish and Portuguese colonies in Africa and Asia.
Char siu is a Cantonese-style of barbecued pork. Originating in Guangdong, it is eaten with rice, used as an ingredient for noodle dishes or in stir fries, and as a filling for chasiu baau or pineapple buns. Five-spice powder is the primary spice, honey or other sweeteners are used as a glaze, and the characteristic red color comes from the red yeast rice when made traditionally.
Chili sauce and chili paste are condiments prepared with chili peppers.
Spare ribs are a variety of ribs cut from the lower portion of a pig, specifically the belly and breastbone, behind the shoulder, and include 11 to 13 long bones. Meat and fat cover the bones. Spare ribs (pork) are distinguished from short ribs, which are beef. Spareribs are typically cooked low and slow, either smoked, grilled, or braised.
Karaage is a Japanese cooking technique in which various foods—most often chicken, but also other meat and fish—are deep fried in oil. The process involves lightly coating small pieces of the meat or fish with a combination of flour and potato starch or corn starch, and frying in a light oil. The foods are marinated prior to coating. The process differs from the preparation of tempura, which is not marinated and uses a batter for coating. Karaage is often served alone or with rice and shredded cabbage.
Tofu is a food prepared by coagulating soy milk and then pressing the resulting curds into solid white blocks of varying softness: silken, soft, firm, extra firm. Tofu is also known as bean curd in English. It is a traditional component of East Asian and Southeast Asian cuisines that has also been consumed in China for over 2,000 years. In modern Western cooking, it is most often treated as a meat substitute.
Crab Rangoon, sometimes called crab puffs, crab rangoon puffs, cheese wontons, or cream cheese rangoons, are filled crisp dumpling appetizers served primarily in American Chinese restaurants.
Hoisin sauce is a thick, fragrant sauce commonly used in Cantonese cuisine as a glaze for meat, an addition to stir fry, or as dipping sauce. It is dark-coloured, sweet and salty. Although regional variants exist, hoisin sauce usually includes soybeans, fennel, red chili peppers, and garlic. Vinegar, five-spice powder, and sugar are also commonly added.
Philippine asado refers to two different Filipino braised meat dishes. The name originates from Spanish asado ("grilled"), a reference to the original dish it was applied to, the Chinese-Filipino version of char siu barbecues usually known as pork asado. However, the Filipino versions have evolved to be braised, not grilled. The other Filipino dishes also known as asado are asado de carajay and asado matua. Unlike the Chinese-derived version, they are savory rather than sweet.