Sauces and Its Uses in Various Cuisines

In cooking, a sauce is liquid, cream, or semi-solid food served on or used in preparing other foods. Sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavour, moisture, and visual appeal to another dish. Sauce is a French word taken from the Latin salsa, meaning salted. Possibly the oldest sauce recorded is garum, the fish sauce used by the Ancient Greeks. Marinara marinara Sauces need a liquid component, but some sauces may contain more solid components than liquid. Sauces are an essential element in cuisines all over the world.

Sauces may be used for savoury dishes or for desserts. They can be prepared and served cold, like mayonnaise, prepared cold but served lukewarm like pesto, or can be cooked like béchamel and served warm or again cooked and served cold like apple sauce. Some sauces are industrial inventions like Worcestershire sauce, bbq sauce, or nowadays mostly bought ready-made like soy sauce or ketchup, others still are freshly prepared by the cook. Sauces for salad are called salad dressing. Sauces made by deglazing a pan are called pan sauces.

A cook who specializes in making sauces is called a saucier. Sauces used in traditional Japanese cuisine are usually based on shōyu (soy sauce), miso or dashi. Ponzu, citrus-flavoured soy sauce, and yakitori no tare, sweetened rich soy sauce, are examples of shoyu-based sauces. Miso-based sauces include gomamiso, miso with ground sesame, and amamiso, sweetened miso. Tonkatsu, okonomiyaki, and yakisoba sauces are based on this sauce. Japanese horseradish or wasabi sauce is used on sushi and sashimi or mixed with soy sauce to make wasabi-joyu. Some sauces in Chinese cuisine are soy sauce, doubanjiang, hoisin sauce, sweet bean sauce, chili sauces,Honey Mustard Dressing, and sweet and sour sauce.

Korean cuisine uses sauces such as doenjang, gochujang, samjang, and soy sauce. Southeast Asian cuisines, such as Thai and Vietnamese cuisine, often use fish sauce, made from fermented fish. Indian cuisines use sauces such as tomato-based curry sauces, tamarind sauce, coconut milk-paste-based sauces, and chutneys. There are substantial regional variations in Indian cuisine, but many sauces use a seasoned mix of onion, ginger and garlic paste as the base of various gravies and sauces. Various cooking oils, ghee and cream are also regular ingredients in Indian sauces. Indonesian cuisine uses typical sauces such as kecap manis (sweet soy sauce), bumbu kacang (peanut sauce) and tauco, while popular hot and spicy sauces are sambal, dabu-dabu and rica-rica.