In American cooking, learn to sprinkle soy sauce on steaks and roasts. Stir it into the richly clotted drippings they leave in the pan, and see how much more piquancy it adds to gravies. Add it to salad dressings, to the stuffing for your Thanksgiving turkey, Rock Cornish hen, or roast chicken. Use it to enrich a barbecue sauce, fish and shellfish dishes, squabs, eggs, soups. Flavor meats before cooking by soaking them in a soy marinade. Here is a fine one for marinating about 2 pounds of sliced beef, pork, lamb, or poultry.
MEAT MARINADE
2 large or 4 small cloves of garlic,
or 4 slices fresh ginger
1/4 cup honey
1/3 cup soy sauce (any of the three types)
Put the garlic and/or ginger through garlic press. Place honey in measuring cup and fill to 1-cup level with
boiling water; stir until honey is dissolved. It both flavors and glazes the meat to seal in the juices and
prevent shrinkage. Add garlic and soy sauce; mix and pour over meat in an enamel (not metal surfaced) pan.Turn the meat occasionally, and keep covered with wax paper or foil. Beef, pork, and poultry soak up the marinade in 5 to 15 minutes. Lamb needs to marinate for 6 to 12 hours.
EGG IN THE BASKET WITH CHICKEN
8 small pullet or (preferably) quail eggs
3/4 cup soy sauce
Oil for deep-frying
2 teaspoons flour
Hard-cook the eggs, shell, and soak in soy sauce to cover for 15 minutes, turning occasionally. Heat oil to 340c. Coat eggs lightly with flour and deep-fry until golden brown.
8 tablespoons peanut oil
pound chicken fillet,
cut in 1-inch cubes
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/3 cup seeded cucumbers, cubed
1/3 cup soaked dry mushroom caps, sliced
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon cornstarch dissolved in
1 teaspoon water
Heat 6 tablespoons oil in skillet and sauté chicken over medium heat until white. Remove and set aside. Heat 2 tablespoons oil, and sauté garlic until edges turn brown. Discard garlic. Then add cucumbers and sliced mushrooms (stems removed); stir-fry 1 minute. Add chicken, soy sauce, and sugar. Stir a few times; thicken with cornstarch.
2 medium potatoes
Oil for deep-frying
You will need a frying basket of the proper size to make individual servings, or a large ladle. Peel potatoes and shred fine; do not wash after shredding. Heat oil to 360°. Fill a frying basket with shredded potatoes, and then press down in the centre with back of spoon. This will form potatoes into hollow basket shape. Fry until golden brown, lift from oil, and gently loosen around the edges to remove with shape intact. Repeat until you have used all the shredded potato.
Serve eggs in the potato baskets for Easter, on a platter with the minced chicken. If you prefer, a single large potato basket may be made-but not too large, since it may not hold together.
