5 Ways to Enjoy Soy Sauce

Of course, here in Malaysia, soy sauce is better known as 'kicap' ... We at Dinasou.com wanna share you at least 5 ways in which you can enjoy soy sauce as more than just a condiment ... We've found this wonderful site called taste.com.au, which lists down 15 ways to enjoy soy sauce, but we'll just focus on 5 of those ways.

1. To enhance the flavours of foods typically eaten as dessert.

    Here in Malaysia, there are people in some parts of the country that will enjoy a sprinkle or a good dash of 'kicap' with 'pisang goreng', or banana fritters. But do you know that soy sauce can be added to ice cream? If you buy a tub of vanilla ice cream, and you want to bring out the butterscotch flavour in it, soften the ice cream first, meaning don't put it in the freezer for a while. If it's a one-litre tub, pour one teaspoon of soy sauce in the softened ice cream and mix well. Put the tub back in the freezer to harden the ice cream. Ice cream is only nice to eat when it's firm. 

Another dessert which you can enhance the flavour of with soy sauce is chocolate brownie. Before baking, add two teaspoons of soy sauce so that the brownie's flavours will be intensified.

You can do the same to other desserts such as blueberry muffins and cakes. Add two to three teaspoons of soy sauce to the mixture before baking and voila! The sweetness of the desserts will be enhanced.

2. To add flavour to meat

    This is not a secret as some of us may actually use soy sauce to boost the richness of meat. But, there's a way of doing it that all of you may not know, such as mixing soy sauce with marmalade before basting chicken or lamb. Roast the meat when its properly basted with the marmalade & soy sauce mixture to give a citrus boost to your chicken or lamb. 

If you like making burger patties from scratch, don't forget to a teaspoon of soy sauce for every 100g of mince beef. This will definitely improve the taste of of your burgers. 

If you want a rich taste and a deep mahogany colour to your ribs (not your ribs, but those taken from a cow, like, duh!) or a beef roast, use soy sauce as a baste. Before or during roasting chicken, make sure to brush soy sauce over it to make it evenly brown and for better flavour. But we're sure you know this already, or else how can we enjoy the Malaysian quintessential dish, 'nasi ayam'?

3. If you want to add depth of flavour to your stews, soups and casseroles, use soy sauce in stock instead of salt. 

4. There are many ways to enjoy pumpkin and pineapple, either in savoury or sweet dishes. But how about just enjoying pumpkin and pineapple on their own with soy sauce? Mix soy sauce with honey and drizzle it over pineapple. Chargrill until golden and just warm. Mix soy sauce and sweet chilli sauce and glaze the mixture over wedges of pumpkin. Pop the wedges in the oven and bake until golden. 

5. This last one may not be a secret at all to most Malaysians. Then again, who knows? We all enjoy our curry gravy, right? But what about brown gravy? The one which you eat with meatballs, for example. For every quarter of water, add a quarter of soy sauce before making your gravy. It will sure add a kick to that brown gravy of yours. 

Here at Dinasou.com, where you can Shop, Save & Earn, we have a variety of soy sauces and in varying volumes. Check them out below. Alternatively, you can go to our website and key in 'soy sauce' in the search box. You'll get to see the whole shebang.

Kewpie Sesame Soy Sauce. 1L for RM31.10
BUY NOW >>

MCM Prime Light Soy Sauce. 5.5kg for RM22.50
BUY NOW >>

Lee Kum Kee Seasoned Soy Sauce for Seafood. 410ml for RM8.70
BUY NOW >>

Brand Street: Make Rojak with MCM Rojak Sauce ... Easy Peasy!

The Malaysian Rojak

Ask anyone in Malaysia if they don't know rojak, and chances are you'd be scoff at. Everyone in Malaysia knows what rojak is, and the different types of rojak. There's the rojak buah, the Mamak rojak and the Penang rojak. To simplify things, here's one recipe we found on the Internet. But to make things even simpler, instead of making the rojak sauce from scratch, we can use MCM Rojak Sauce, which is sold on Brand Street. 

Ingredients:

1) Fritters

    - 300ml water

    - 1 large (Grade A) egg

    - 80gm tapioca flour

    - 80gm rice flour

    - 1 tablespoon of fennel seeds

    - salt to taste

    - oil for deep frying

2) Sambal

    - 6 red chilies, sliced

    - 3-4 bird's eye chilies

    - 20gm belacan, roasted and crushed

3) Sauce

    We'll save you the bother of making the rojak sauce from scratch by introducing MCM Rojak Sauce, a brand of Kum Thin Food Industries Sdn Bhd. How much do you need? As much as it takes to mix the rojak well.

MCM Rojak Sauce

4) Basic Rojak    
    - 200gm yambean (sengkuang), cut into wedges

    - 200gm cucumber, cut into wedges

    - 200gm pineapple, cut into wedges

    - 200gm green mango, cut into wedges

Below are optional ingredients to add to the rojak:

    - guava (jambu batu), cut into wedges

    - rose apples (jambu air), cut into wedges

    - amberella (kedondong), cut into wedges

    - water spinach (kangkung), cut into lengths and scalded

    - beansprouts, scalded

    - hard beancurd (taukwa), cubed

    - Chinese cruller (yutiao, yau char kwai or chakoi)

    - soaked dried cuttlefish, scalded and sliced

    - deep fried fish skin

    - wild ginger flower (bunga kantan), split and sliced finely

5) Toppings

    - 150gm peanuts, roasted and crushed

    - 60gm white sesame seeds, toasted

To prepare fritters:

Combine the flours, egg and water in a mixing bowl. Before adding salt and fennel seeds, make sure the mixture is mixed well and then strained.

Using a wok, heat enough oil for deep frying over medium heat. When the oil is hot enough, but not so much that smoke is rising from it, scoop up a small size mixed batter and let it slide down the sides of the wok. The batter will fan out as it hits the hot oil to form a fritter. Repeat this until all the batter is turning to fritters in the hot oil.

Fry them until they are golden brown on both sides. Scoop up the fritters from the hot oil with a metal strainer and make sure that you hold the strainer over the hot oil until the last drop of oil falls. To further dtrain the oil from the fritters, put them into a paper towel and leave to cool before putting them in an airtight container until needed.

To prepare sambal:

Pound the chilies and the belacan together to a fine paste.

To prepare the rojak:

Take a mixing bowl and toss the cut fruits and vegetables together with the rojak sauce. Make sure that the rojak sauce is mixed well together with the fruits and vegetables. Then add the optional ingredients, if you like, and mix them well. Then add the crunchy ingredients such as the Chinese cruller and fritters. You can break the fritters into pieces before adding them into the rojak mix. Finally, sprinkle crushed peanuts and and sesame seeds generously before serving.

Voila! You have made your very own rojak. This particular recipe is a combination of the fruit rojak and the Penang rojak, but you have a choice of adding all the optional ingredients, or choosing only some of them such as the Chinese cruller and guava, but not the bean sprouts, deep fried fish skin and wild ginger flower. The choice is up to you as our aim is to make the simplest rojak as possible. Bon appetit!

Noodles, another staple Asian food

In most South East Asian countries, we not only eat rice as a staple food, we also eat noodles, and the type of noodles available differ according to region. In Malaysia, we have dried noodles and wet noodles, and the focus of this post is wet noodles. At Dinasou Online Supermart, we sell a variety of wet noodles, namely Char Kuey Teow, Ho Fun, Wheat Noodles, or mee kuning, mee nipis and Hokkien mee, and Rice Noodles, or laksa. One may not believe this, but dinasou.com may be the only online supermart that sells wet noodles, or perishable items. We checked with at least one of our competitors, and they only sell the dried variety, though it has to be said that their range of Japanese noodles is far better than ours. But what other online supermart sells wet noodles other than Malaysia's 1st O2O Online Supermart? Below is our selection of wet noodles.

Sri Putih Penang Char Kuey Teoh
BUY NOW >>

Sri Putih Ipoh Ho Fun
BUY NOW >>

Mee Nipis
BUY NOW >>

Mee Kuning
BUY NOW >>

Mee Hokkien
BUY NOW >>

Laksa Pendek
BUY NOW >>

Laksa Panjang (Lai Noodle)
BUY NOW >>

Cooking wines for Chinese and Western Gourmet Dishes

Dinasou Online Supermart does sell items that are non-halal, so this post is not for Muslims. The range of non-halal products that dinasou.com sells is quite extensive, but this post will only focus on one type of product: cooking wine. Most of the cooking wines sold at Malaysia's 1st  O2O Online Supermart are manufactured in China and imported by local companies, such as Hai-O Enterprise Sdn Bhd. As stated before, variety is Dinasou Online Supermart's strength, so we sell a wide range of cooking wines and rice wines. Listed below are the wines:

Ling Ta Shao Hsing Hua Tiao Chiew
BUY NOW >>

Jin Ding Hua Tiao Chiew
BUY NOW >> 

Fata Cooking Hua Tiao Wine
BUY NOW >>

12 Years Cooking Wine
BUY NOW >>

Kosan Glutinous Rice Wine
BUY NOW >>

Tong Ah Liuer Mei Kwei Lau
BUY NOW >>

Pagoda Shao Hsing Hua Tiao Chiew
BUY NOW >>

San Zheng Mi Chiew
BUY NOW >>

New Sun Shao Xing Chiew
BUY NOW >>

Lao Shao Shing Cooking Wine
BUY NOW >>

Rose Brand Samsu Beras
BUY NOW >>

Dried anchovies – the Good & the Bad

Here's a breakdown of nutrition facts for Asian dried anchovies:

[Per serving of 25g]

Calories – 35

Total fat – 1g

Saturated – 0g

Polyunsaturated – 0g

Monounsaturated – 0g

Trans – 0g

Cholesterol – 0mg

Sodium – 606mg

Potassium – 0mg

Total Carbs – 0g

Dietary Fiber – 0g

Sugars – 0g

Protein –6g

Vitamin A – 0%

Vitamin C – 0%

Calcium – 0%

Iron – 0%

Based on the above, we know for sure that people who want to maintain a healthy heart and a fit body wouldn't mind a sprinkling of dried anchovies in their otherwise bland porridge, for example. But, those with high blood pressure better watch out as a small serving of 25g of dried anchovies contains 606mg of sodium, which is over the roof if they decide to indulge in a little too much fried dried anchovies in their 'nasi lemak'. So, you have been forewarned. Nevertheless, at Dinasou.com, we sell a variety of dried anchovies. Take a look below and visit our online store. 

Facts taken from: myfitnesspal.com

Ikan Bilis Silver
BUY NOW >>

Ikan Bilis Putih (S)
BUY NOW >>

Ikan Bilis Hitam
BUY NOW >>

Ikan Bilis Kopek A2
BUY NOW >>

Ikan Bilis Kembong
BUY NOW >>

Brand Street: MCM Soy Sauces - Recipe for Stir Fry Fish Maw & Trial Product Promotion

Dear members, Dinasou Online Supermart wants to talk about a cracking good recipe using the Superior Light Soy Sauce & Golden Thick Soy Sauce from one of our Brand Street merchants, MCM. This delicious dish is called Stir Fry Fish Maw and the ingredients are as follows:

- 300gm of fish maw
- 630gm of cabbage
- 30gm of dried shrimp
- 30gm of fried garlic
- 10gm of sliced ginger
- 20gm of spring onion
- 30ml of filtered water
- 20ml of olive oil
- 15gm of sugar
-  Some chopped red chilies
- A little salt
- MCM Superior Light Soy Sauce & Golden Thick Soy Sauce

Preparation:
1) Heat the wok with oil, throw in the cabbage until it is soft and aromatic.
2) Add salt, dried shrimp & garlic. Stir fry the whole concoction for a short while and set them onto a plate.
3) Heat the wok with oil again, and this time add sliced ginger, spring onion and fish maw. Stir fry this combination of ingredients until it becomes aromatic.
4) Add some dashes of MCM Superior Light Soy Sauce, Golden Thick Soy Sauce and water. Fry all the ingredients until dry.
5) Remove the ginger and spring onion. Place the fish maw on top of the plated cabbage. Decorate with some red chilies and spring onion. Voila! Your Stir Fry Fish Maw is ready to be served.

The MCM Superior Light Soy Sauce & Golden Thick Soy Sauce recently were awarded with the title "World Premium Food Material" at the 2015 Milano World Expo Cate & Fashion World Competition. That is why this two products are part of our Trial Product Promotion, which ends 10/11/2015. You can visit our Facebook page for more info on the promotion.

Brand Street: MCM Belachan Sauce

Most Malaysians love belacan, or shrimp sauce, as a staple ingredient in one of Malaysia's iconic 'condiment', which is Sambal Ikan Bilis. Belacan gives a salty flavour and to make Sambal Ikan Bilis hot as most Malaysians love their food hot and spicy, one adds dried chillies and voila! A perfect condiment for one of Malaysia's popular dishes - Nasi Lemak. Dinasou.com would like to introduce its members to a new belacan sauce produced by Kum Thim Food Industries Sdn Bhd under the MCM brand, which is sold under Dinasou's Brand Street tab. What makes MCM Belachan Sauce any different from the typical shrimp paste or sauce that one buys from the grocery store? Well, for one, the ingredients in MCM Belachan Sauce is more varied than the typical shrimp paste, which is made up mainly from fermented ground shrimp mixed with salt, according to Wikipedia. The ingredients for MCM Belachan Sauce are dried shallots, garlic, dried shrimp, dried chillies, bird's eye chillies (which should add the 'kick' to this belacan sauce), lemongrass, ginger, sugar, salt and cooking oil. What really sets apart MCM Belachan Sauce from the rest is the addition of candlenut, or buah keras. If you really want to know how different is the taste, we at Dinasou suggests that you buy a bottle today and try it out for yourself. You never know, you might end up loving it! Oh oh, a certain fast food giant might be coming after us for using their slogan. Oh well, c'est la vie!