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“Real soy sauce is as complex as a fine wine- fruity, earthy, floral also can, lah." Uncle Robert pointed out the lively acidity of the light soy sauce in comparison to the rich, mellow sweetness of the dark one. Light soy, he explained, was used for seasoning and dipping; dark soy was used for cooking because its flavors developed under heat.”
― Kirstin Chen, Soy Sauce for Beginners

“When he made my favorite bak kut teh, a fragrant, spicy soup with tender pork spare ribs and fat shitake mushrooms, he always had me sample the stock. He taught me to make a big slurping sound as I sipped to avoid burning my tongue. He taught me to discern the warmth of cinnamon, the tang of orange peel, and the mellow licorice of star anise. Most importantly, Ba taught me to appreciate the way a dash of Lin's light soy sauce brightened each of these flavors while pulling them together into a single, harmonious whole.”
― Kirstin Chen, Soy Sauce for Beginners

“I described Ba's dream of making soy sauce a staple for Western cooks. "He makes a stellar boeuf bourguignon with light soy sauce in place of salt," I told the girl. The delicate flavors of our sauce enhanced the rich umami taste of the meat. Our sauce rounded out the stock, highlighting the bright, acidic tomatoes, preventing the red wine from overwhelming the dish.”
― Kirstin Chen, Soy Sauce for Beginners

“I see bacon, green peppers, mushrooms... those are all found in Napolitan Spaghetti. I guess instead of the standard ketchup, he's used curry roux for the sauce?
The noodles look similar to fettuccini."
"Hm. I'm not seeing anything else that stands out about it. Given how fun and amusing the calzone a minute ago was...
... the impact of this one's a lot more bland and boring..."
W-what the heck? Where did this heavy richness come from? It hits like a shockwave straight to the brain!
"Chicken and beef stocks for the base... with fennel and green cardamom for fragrance! What an excellent, tongue-tingling curry sauce! It clings well to the broad fettuccini noodles too!"
"For extra flavor is that... soy sauce?"
"No, it's tamari soy sauce!
Tamari soy sauce is richer and less salty than standard soy sauce, with a more full-bodied sweetness to it. Most tamari is made on Japan's eastern seaboard. "
"That's not all either! I'm picking up the mellow hints of cheese! But I'm not seeing a single shred of any kind of cheese in here. Where's it hiding?"
"Allow me to tell you, sir. First, look at the short edge of a noodle, please."
?! What on earth?!
This noodle's got three layers!"
"For the outer layers, I kneaded turmeric into the pasta dough. But for the inner layer, I added Parmesan cheese!"
"I see! It's the combination of the tamari soy sauce and the parmesan cheese that gives this dish its incredible richness!"
"Yeah, but wait a minute! If you go kneading cheese right into the noodles, wouldn't it just melt back out when you boiled them?"
No... that's why they're in three layers! With the cheese in the middle, the outer layers prevented it from melting out!
The deep, rich curry sauce, underscored with the flavor of tamari soy sauce...
... and the chewy noodles, which hit you with the mellow, robust taste of parmesan cheese with every bite!
Many people are familiar with the idea of coating cream cheese in soy sauce...
... but who would have thought parmesan cheese would match this well with tamari soy sauce! ”
― Yuto Tsukuda, ʳꪤΥ½©`¥Þ 7 [Shokugeki no Souma 7]

“But in those first hours after you take it, your brain is tuned in like nothing you can imagine. Eyes like the Hubble telescope, sensing light that's not even on the spectrum. You might be able to read minds, make time stop, cook pasta that's exactly right every time.”
― David Wong

“It's a parade of flawless tuna deliciousness! But by far, the most dangerous piece... is the one that looks like a bomb of pure tuna goodness, the straw-grilled, seared noten sushi!
The noten- a cut of meat from the top of the tuna's head- is one of the priciest cuts. Extravagantly fatty, its richness melds with the fragrant searing into a powerful duo! Yet there isn't the first hint of fishiness! Searing it using aromatic straw burned it away, leaving only pure savory flavor behind to please both nose and palate!"
"His Trace was dead-on. Looks like it really will be his arrangements on that Gunkan Maki that decide this card."
"I can't even begin to guess what it tastes like."
What's this on top of the minced tuna and leeks?! Is it... meringue?!
"Aah! Now I see! I know what Subaru Mimasaka took out at that moment! It was the same smoked soy sauce he passed to Kuga!"
The mellow, full-bodied aroma of smoked soy sauce has seeped into every crevice of the minced tuna...
... while the differing textures of the meringue and the negitoro create deeper, more complex layers to the flavor!
If I were to name it, I would call it the "Ultimate Negitoro Eggs-over-Rice Gunkan Sushi"! Minced tuna rib meat mixed with leeks and smoked soy sauce, topped with quail-egg yolk”
― Yuto Tsukuda, ʳꪤΥ½©`¥Þ 27 [Shokugeki no Souma 27]

“Once people saw how a single teaspoon can bring out the fragrance of scallion and ginger and garlic, or how a light coating can amplify the smokiness of tender roast meat,"- here, he bunched up his fingertips and brought them to his lips-"how could they turn away?”
― Kirstin Chen, Soy Sauce for Beginners

“The mixture, Ahkong's creation, was sweet and tangy and savory- a comforting, full-bodied flavor like burnt sugar, or brown butter that contrasted sharply with the dancing bubbles on my tongue.”
― Kirstin Chen, Soy Sauce for Beginners

“Who knew that specialty food producers from bastions of Americana as Gainesville, Florida, and Louisville, Kentucky, had begun to experiment with artisanal soy sauce? According to a prominent food magazine, the Kentucky producer even aged its sauce in old bourbon barrels for an added whiff of smoke and local color. Top chefs all over America were raving about the depth of flavor the smoky sauce brought to dry-aged filet mignon and buttery black cod. An avant-garde chef in Chicago had infused the soy sauce into butter. The resulting concoction was spread on bite-sized brioche, topped with tobiko caviar, and served as the amuse bouche to his seventeen-course tasting menu.”
― Kirstin Chen, Soy Sauce for Beginners

“But most of all, where did this deeply complex sweetness come from?! It's far too nuanced to be solely brown sugar!"
"Oh, the answer to that is in the flavoring I used."
"Soy sauce?!"
"Oh my gosh, she added soy sauce to a dessert?!"
"I used it at the very end of the recipe.
To make the whipped-cream filling, I used heavy cream, vanilla extract, light brown sugar and a dash of soy sauce.
Once the cakes were baked, I spread the whipped cream on top, rolled them up and chilled them in the fridge for a few minutes.
All of that made the brown sugar in the cake both taste and look even cuter than it did before."
"Aah, I see. The concept is similar to that of salted caramels. Add salt to something sweet..
... and by comparison the sweetness will stand out on the tongue even more strongly.
She's created a new and unique dessert topping- Soy Sauce Whipped Cream!"
"Soy sauce whipped cream, eh? I see! So that's how it works!"
Since it isn't as refined as white sugar, brown sugar retains trace amounts of minerals, like iron and sodium.
The unique layered flavor these minerals give to it matches beautifully with the salty body of soy sauce!
"Without brown sugar as the main component, this exquisite deliciousness would not be possible!"
"It tastes even yummier if you try some of the various fruits in between each bite of cake.
The candy sculptures are totally edible too.
If you break one up into crumbs and crunch on it while taking a bite of the cake, it's super yummy."
How wonderfully surprising! Each and every bite...
... is an invitation to a land of dreams! ”
― Yuto Tsukuda, ʳꪤΥ½©`¥Þ 29 [Shokugeki no Souma 29]

“The mochi gradually began to take on color and swell out. When their skin seared with brown grill marks started to split open, revealing glimpses of their sparkling white insides, Rika took them out of the toaster. She perched a generous wedge of butter on top of each, and prepared the sugared soy sauce in a small dish. Watching as the molten butter flowed gently over both the burnished surface and the soft white interior, her stomach rumbled. Though she knew it was bad manners to eat standing up, she stuffed one of the mochi in her mouth right there at the counter.
The heady aroma that rose up through her nose, the crispiness of the skin as it broke open beneath her teeth, the silkiness of the gooey insides that spread themselves flat across every bit of flesh in her mouth and refused to let go... The hot butter fused the sugar and soy sauce together, clinging to the sweet, soft, shapeless mass in her mouth, swimming around its outside as though to ascertain its contours. The grease of the butter melded with the grit of the sugar and the pungent soy sauce. By the time she'd finished chewing, the roots of her teeth were trembling pleasurably.”
― Asako Yuzuki, Butter

“In retrospect, I'm not sure why I considered unexpected beer a problem, but the place was smoky and not especially welcoming, and Iris was in the mood for tonkatsu but couldn't find any on the menu. She flipped through for a while and then said, "I want that."
"Looks good to me," I said. It was some kind of chicken on a stick. When I ordered it, the waiter asked if we wanted shio or tare. This much I could understand. Shio is salt; tare is a rich, sweet sauce made from reduced soy sauce, mirin, and simmered chicken parts. It's a common choice in yakitori places; tare is the safe option, since anything tastes good with sweetened soy sauce. Salt is for when you really want to see what the grill master can do.
Here we went with tare. Soon the waiter brought two skewers, each loaded up winy, glistening bites of chicken. We each took a bite and shared an astonished stare: this was the best chicken we'd ever tasted, and we had absolutely no idea what chicken part we were eating.
Later we figured out that it was bonjiri (sometimes written bonchiri). In English, it's called chicken tail or, more memorably, the Pope's Nose, a fatty gland usually discarded when prepping a chicken for Western-style cooking. We ordered two more plates of the stuff.
Yakitori is a beak-to-tail approach to chicken. OK, not literally beaks, but common choices at a yakitori place include thigh meat, breast meat, wings, heart, liver, and cartilage. The true test of a yakitori cook, I think, is chicken skin. To thread the skin onto skewers at the proper density and then grill it until juicy but neither overcooked (dry and crusty) or undercooked (unspeakable) requires serious skill.”
― Matthew Amster-Burton, Pretty Good Number One: An American Family Eats Tokyo

“We ate three tiny, geometrically engineered appetizers, including a perfect cube of kabocha squash-flavored fish cake and an octopus "salad" consisting of one tiny piece of octopus brushed with a plum dressing. Then the waitress uncovered and lit the burner in the center of the table and set a shallow cast-iron pan on top. She poured a thin layer of sauce from a pitcher. Sukiyaki is all about the sauce, a mixture of soy sauce, mirin, sake, and sugar. It's frankly sweet. Usually I'm a tiresome person who complains about overly sweet food, but where soy sauce is involved, I make an exception, because soy sauce and sugar were born to hang.
The waitress set down a platter of thin-sliced Wagyu beef, so marbled that it was nearly white. She asked if we wanted egg. This time I was prepared: only for me, thanks. Then she cooked us each a slice of beef. It was tender enough to cut with your tongue against the roof of your mouth. While we sighed over the meat, she began adding other ingredients to the pan: napa cabbage, tofu, wheat gluten (fu), fresh shiitake mushrooms, shirataki noodles, chrysanthemum leaves (shungiku), and, of course, negi. Suggested tourist slogan: Tokyo: We put negi in it.
Then we were left to cook the rest of the meat and vegetables ourselves. I think we nailed it. (Actually, it's impossible to do it wrong.) Like chanko nabe and all Japanese hot pots, sukiyaki gets better as the meal goes on, because the sauce becomes more concentrated and soaks up more flavor from the ingredients cooking in it.”
― Matthew Amster-Burton, Pretty Good Number One: An American Family Eats Tokyo

“Thanks to the soy-sauce-based kaeshi sauce, the broth does have a clean aftertaste, yes... but you would never expect this strong and sweet an umami flavor just at a glance!"
"How on earth could she-
Oh! The vegetable toppings... I've seen this combination before...
Kozuyu."
"Kozuyu?"
"Yes, sir! I made this dish based on Kozuyu but with a paitan stock and soy sauce for the kaeshi. It's Kozuyu Chicken Soy Sauce Ramen."
KOZUYU
It's a traditional delicacy local to the Aizu area in Northwestern Japan. A vegetable soup, its clear broth is made with scallop stock. Considered a ceremonial meal, it is often served in special bowls on auspicious days, such as festivals and holidays.
"Oh, so that's what it is!"
"She took a local delicacy and reimagined it as a ramen dish. How clever!"
"The scallop and paitan stock forms a solid foundation for the overall flavor of the dish."
"Who knew that ramen and Kozuyu would complement each other this well?"
"It looks like she also used a blend of light soy sauce and white soy sauce for the kaeshi sauce."
White soy sauce! While most Japanese soy sauces are made with a mix of soy and wheat... white soy sauce uses a much higher ratio of wheat to soy! This gives it a much sweeter taste and a far lighter color than regular soy sauce, which is why it's called white. Since Kozuyu broth is traditionally seasoned with soy sauce, using white soy sauce makes perfect sense!
"But white soy sauce alone isn't enough to explain this umami flavor! Where on earth is it coming from?"
"In this dish, the last, most important chunk of umami flavor...
... comes from the vegetables.
The burdock root, shiitake mushrooms, string beans... every vegetable I used as a topping... were first dried and then simmered together with the broth!"
Aha! That's right! Drying vegetables concentrates the umami flavors and increases their nutritional value! It also ameliorates their natural grassy pungency, giving them a flavor when cooked that is much different than what they had raw!
Megumi has captured all of that umami goodness in her broth!”
― Yuto Tsukuda, ʳꪤΥ½©`¥Þ 9 [Shokugeki no Souma 9]

“We visited Gwangjang Market in one of Seoul's oldest neighborhoods, squeezing past crowds of people threading through its covered alleys, a natural maze spontaneously joined and splintered over a century of accretion. We passed busy ajummas in aprons and rubber kitchen gloves tossing knife-cut noodles in colossal, bubbling pots for kalguksu, grabbing fistfuls of colorful namul from overbrimming bowls for bibimbap, standing over gurgling pools of hot oil, armed with metal spatulas in either hand, flipping the crispy sides of stone-milled soybean pancakes. Metal containers full of jeotgal, salt-fermented seafood banchan, affectionally known as rice thieves, because their intense, salty flavor cries out for starchy, neutral balance; raw, pregnant crabs, floating belly up in soy sauce to show off the unctuous roe protruding out from beneath their shells; millions of minuscule peach-colored krill used for making kimchi or finishing hot soup with rice; and my family's favorite, crimson sacks of pollack roe smothered in gochugaru, myeongnanjeot.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart

“Even though hiyashi ch¨±ka is a dish that was developed in Japan, does it make a difference or not if one prepares it using Chinese ingredients?
The most important things--- the noodles and the broth--- are both items borrowed from Chinese cuisine and are prepared using Chinese cooking methods. The barbecued pork on top is also Chinese-style.
Which obviously means that Chinese condiments would be better suited to it.
Chinese soy sauce and Japanese soy sauce taste different. The same goes for the sake and mirin.
Shir¨­ used the best ingredients he could get his hands on in Japan. That is perfectly fine as long as you're making Japanese food.
But the Chinese condiments have a far better chemistry with the dish.
Shir¨­ paid great attention to each of the ingredients individually but neglected to consider the dish as a whole.
Because the ingredients are Chinese, by using Chinese condiments...
... he was able to blend the flavors into one, which is impossible to do with Japanese condiments.”
― Tetsu Kariya, Ramen and Gyoza

“Good eggplants are hard to find these days. It's because the eggplants don't get fully ripe because of the pesticides and herbicides."
"This isn't just about Hitoshi. Anybody who eats this bad eggplant...
... will come to think that eggplant doesn't taste good at all.
Eggplant and oil are a perfect match. Let me make you a dish that even the greatest eggplant hater will like.
Pour sesame oil into the wok. Eggplant soaks up a lot of oil, so pour a lot in.
Once the oil is heated, cut the eggplant into thin slices of about a quarter inch.
You want to carefully stir-fry the eggplant trying to make every slice soak up the oil, but you also have to be fast at it. Keep the flame at high heat.
It's done when the eggplant starts to get soft and brown.
If you cook it too much, the skin gets hard, so be careful.
Now you pour some soy sauce on top of it.”
― Tetsu Kariya, Vegetables

“Hm. A dal bean curry, eh? It looks similar to Chana Masala, a Punjabi dish that uses chickpeas...
!
This viscous stickiness...!"
"It's Natto!"
Gooey texture and savory flavor are melding together inside my mouth! Was natto ever this delicious?
"Wait... this is no normal natto! Could it be..."
"Yes, sir. This natto I made by hand using charcoal smoke. It's charcoal-aged natto.
After I added the natto spores to a batch of soybeans, I stored them in an underground room. There I lit a charcoal fire and then kept the room at just the right temperature and humidity to ferment the soybeans.
As this process takes several days to complete, I prepared it ahead of time, over my summer break."
"The carbon dioxide generated by the charcoal fire impacts the maturation of the soy proteins. It gives the natto a richer flavor. It also halts bacteria death in the beans, preventing the typical smell of ammonia from developing!"
"Did you know all that?"
"I heard a little about it once. It's supposed to be a really hard process that takes loads of time to finish!"
"And she made it by herself?!"
"But that isn't all.
There's another flavor--- a deeper, more savory one that resonates across the tongue like a deep bass chord."
"Oh, that?
As a special hidden seasoning, I added shoyu koji."

SHOYU KOJI
Instead of salt, soy sauce is added to the koji bacteria and mixed with the rice until thick. Then it is left to ferment at a constant temperature for several weeks.

So that's the black stuff that was in that jar!
Shoyu koji has over ten times glutamic acid---an umami component--- than shio koji does.
I see. While the strong flavor of curry spices drowns out most other seasonings, shoyu koji's flavor is powerful enough to that it is instead a savory magnifier!
Her curry takes full advantage of her detailed knowledge of fermentation techniques! It is truly a magnificent dish!
"The creamy Japanese-style curry roux has blended in with the natto's gooeyness beautifully!"
"The mound of crisp, minced green onion on top is hard to resist as well!"”
― Y¨±to Tsukuda, ʳꪤΥ½©`¥Þ 7 [Shokugeki no Souma 7]