Soy sauce is one of the essential ingredients in Japanese cooking.
There are so many different kinds of soy sauce for so many different purposes.
Now, I have a new addition to my soy sauce collection at home...thanks to my donabe smoker, "Ibushi Gin"!
Yes, it's home-smoked soy sauce.
Making smoked soy sauce is extremely easy. After spreading a small amount of sakura (Japanese cherry blossom tree) smoke chips in the bottom, I just set some regular dark-color soy sauce in a shallow bowl in the donabe smoker. Then, just follow the basic smoking process of the donabe smoker, except that I let it rest for 30 minutes (instead of 20 minutes after turning off the heat), so that I could make sure the real "deep smoke" to my soy sauce. That's it, the aromatic smoked soy sauce was ready.
The aroma was seriously incredibly smokey-soy!
To taste my donabe-smoked soy sauce for the first time, I made some simple brown rice with the double-lid donabe rice cooker, "Kamado-san". The rice was served with fresh egg, a sprinkle of ao-nori (seaweed flakes), and some drizzle of the brand-new donabe-smoked soy sauce. It was amazing!
I think I'm now addicted to donabe-smoked soy sauce. This can be used for so many different types of dishes. You can use it as a dipping sauce, or cook with different ingredients. I can't try it with some fatty yellowtail sashimi next time.
The recipe for the smoked soy sauce is also found in toiro's website.
Happy donabe life.
