Et tu, soy sauce?

[Subtle_badger]

Something made me look at the label of the soy sauce I picked up at the Thai grocery.

😡

Ingredients: Water, salt, sugar, sugar...

[BrynGlas]

Yes I have seen the horrors of soy. Investigating bottles and jars of stuff I might use in an apparently 'from scratch' meal made myself long ago made me very wary of what I buy and use in meals.

People just don't look at such things. My family think that I am cracked because I don't use ready made pasta sauce, (or any other sauce, carbonnara, tikka, etc etc) curry pastes, curry kits, etc which are available. People think that those things come under the lable of 'cooking from scratch' now.

Buying curry powder for instance near me has been absolutely impossible in our Co-op for years - and not always easy finding it in supermarkets, either - but staff take me to the very many jars of potions/sauces/notions etc and look at me as though I have obviously got alzheimers and don't have a clue about cooking anything when I refuse to buy anything from the vast array of jars on offer, often shaking their heads as they walk away.

I tried recently making some sort of curry from spices which I have in the house and I have lots in stock. I had a recipe, I followed it exactly, marinated everything, it was awful, I couldn't eat it, it tasted nothing like curry of any kind and it was a complete waste of time and money.

So curry powder seems to pretty much have died a death. Tv/online recipes say use curry leaves in curry recipes. I have been searching for curry leaves to try for years, I have never seen one yet. If one smacked me in the face I would not know what it was! Same goes for many more things that I have sen used on tv food programmes.

'Easily available in stores' just isn't true here. My heart sinks every time I hear or read that phrase. I think of it as just another example of 'the great divide'. That seems to me to never disappear.

I still use oy occasionally, but it is definately not in regular use.

[Penel in reply to BrynGlas]

Similar experience in local Co-op when asking if they had a full fat yoghurt.

[BrynGlas in reply to Penel]

OMG Penel, I have been looked at like I was a martian whenever I have asked that question! The 'fat' message has well and trully been rammed home and only very deranged people would consider eating such, as we know very well.

Tesco did start selling a nice 10% fat plain yogurt. I found it when I was in Stoke so long. I bought it weekly for a while, it was available in a decent enough size to last a week at a time. After a couple of weeks of this I found it replaced for a 5% fat yogurt, they discontinued the 10% one.

Aldi do a 10% fat one and Lidl do too. I prefer Lidl's, but neither of them were as nice as Tesco's. I have to travel for 30 mins to get to either of those stores, so I rarely have it.

Out of curiosity, is 10% considered as 'full fat' ? I have often looked but never seen those two words, 'full' & 'fat' on anything in a supermarket. I presume that they would just not sell anything that was labelled as full fwt.

[Penel in reply to BrynGlas]

Yes, 10% seems to be about the fullest fat you can get. Fage Total yoghurt had no % labelling to start with , and I had to check when the 10% label started being used.

I’ve started getting milk and yoghurt delivered. It took a while to convince the milkman that we did want whole, not semi skimmed, milk. You can use whole milk plus any live culture yoghurt to make a proper fat yoghurt, in my case fermented for 24 hours to make it low lactose.

[BrynGlas in reply to Penel]

Yes, zero fat food will be around for a long time yet.

[TheAwfulToad Ambassador in reply to BrynGlas]

Yup, we're literally not allowed to buy food with fat in it these days. I've done a couple of extended rants about it.

You have to look long and hard to find the non-zero-fat version of anything. Last time I was in Tesco (a few months back) there was an entire aisle of "yoghurt", virtually none of which met the technical definition of yoghurt (ie., fermented milk). They were all low-fat, and all made with reconstituted milk powder, sugar, modified starches, flavourings, and who-knows-what. Tucked away in a corner, gathering dust, I managed to find a pot of proper natural yoghurt (I wanted it for a starter culture). I bet they'll be putting health warnings on these eventually.

[Arthrath in reply to BrynGlas]

Try justingredients on the internet, they have sixteen curry powders. They also do an excellent smoked paprika .

There is a warning that they may contain traces of nuts, gluten and celery, I assume because they are all stored together.

I try to buy on the high street but sometimes it just isn’t possible.

Ps they also sell curry leaves, regular and organic.

Happy cooking, don’t forget to fry or dry fry the spices first.

[BrynGlas in reply to Arthrath]

Oh, you are my saviour!!! Just think, proper curry powder!

I will visit them right now! Yyyippppeeeeeeeee!!!!!

[BrynGlas in reply to Arthrath]

OMG! Curry Leaves AS WELL!!!!!!! I have searched online for curry leaves before, began to think I would never find them and I haven't to date! Whoopeedoopydoo.

[Arthrath in reply to BrynGlas]

To save on postage we order in bulk then we vacuum pack them into smaller bags to keep them ’fresh’.

You may have friends/relatives who would like to share an order. Or you could just bulk cook and freeze.

Always nice to connect with another foodie. X

[BrynGlas in reply to Arthrath]

Well, I ordered 2 different curry powders, I wanted curry leaves as well, but they only had the second size and up of the organic ones and none at all of the normal one, and I didn't want to shell out over £8 so I will have to wait for stock to arrive!

If I buy large portions I generally portion them out and then freeze the extras. That works quite well. Can't wait for my curry powder to arrive, thanks again.

[TheAwfulToad Ambassador in reply to BrynGlas]

If you want curries that taste like the takeaway version, I can recommend Kris Dhillon's books. The recipes are really simple and they taste great.

I grow curry leaves on my farm. They look like small bay leaves. Nothing beats the flavour of fresh leaves IMO but of course dried ones are better than nothing! Generally, you fry them in the oil (along with other spices that need to be "tempered") and then take them out. They're not critical, but they do add a certain depth of flavour.

[Subtle_badger in reply to BrynGlas]

I was in Tesco today, so decided to check out the curry powders. Started with Schwartz, the first one I looked at had a starch as the main ingredient, and the second had sugar! Forgetting the whole low carb thing, that's just a rip off, cutting the curry with cheaper ingredient. I like my curry, and my heroine, pure.

But then I looked at a random Tesco branded mix, medium tikka.

Ingredients: Coriander Seed, Paprika, Cumin Seed, Onion Powder, Salt, Coriander Leaf, Garlic Powder, Fenugreek, Cinnamon, Ginger, Chilli Powder, Black Pepper, Cardamom, Clove.

Nothing to dislike; they are all spices or herbs. That's a good old fashioned curry powder. I regret I didn't buy it.

You may need to move your loyalty from co-op to Tesco.

tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/p...

NB: no curry leaves in the ingredient list!

[Penel]

Perhaps you could have a look for Tamari sauce? It’s a bit thicker than soy sauce. The brand I use contains water, soy beans, sea salt and a ‘cultured rice’ . It’s strong, so you don’t need much of it.

[Cooper27]

Just wondering, as soya sauce is a fermented food, is the sugar perhaps part of the fermenting process? As with Kefir/kombucha?

[BrynGlas in reply to Cooper27]

No idea Cooper 27, I just think that as I rarely use it I can live with the sugar only once in a blue moon. I used to cook Cantonese a lot when my children and grandchildren were near by but I can't remember when they were all here last.

We used to live in Hong kong for a short while, only 15 months, 1978/1979 but we all got into Cantonese food and I learned to cook quite a bit of it too. But it is very difficult doing Cantonese food for one person.

[Cooper27 in reply to BrynGlas]

The thing is though, if the sugar is there for the fermentation then it doesn't count because the sugar is used up by the fermentation process

[BrynGlas in reply to Cooper27]

Yes I understand, like adding a little sugar to your homemade white wine to turn it into bubbly!

[Subtle_badger in reply to Cooper27]

Soy sauce is fermented soy beans. No sugar is required. I managed to purchase a highly bowlderised version.

Added sugar is required for kefir if you don't use milk or some other sugar.