Rice Bowl Sauces: Hoisin Ginger

Why make just one flavor of rice bowl sauce when you stumble upon a recipe for five? 

Once I surveyed this quintet of delicious options, I set upon a plan to try them all.

Another perfect sunny summer evening in my backyard, another delicious rice bowl dinner.

This week, I served up brown rice, roasted radishes and lightly wilted arugula, and a tidy bit of roasted salmon, topped with hoisin ginger sauce. 

Hoisin sauce, if you didn't know, is an Asian condiment. I assumed it came from a single source, like the juice of the hoisin berry or some such thing; I didn't know. But after a bit of poking around online, I learned that hoisin sauce is composed of a number of familiar things like peanut butter, honey, rice vinegar and miso paste. You can make it yourself if you so desire. 

But I had no foreknowledge of this culinary possibility, so I whipped up my dinner using the basic garden-variety hoisin sauce from my local Asian supermarket, and the taste was phenomenal. 

I'd go so far as to say this rice bowl and its superstar sauce was lip-smacking good. And that, my friends, is darn near perfect. 

Ingredients & Directions:

Combine 1/2 cup hoisin sauce, 1 teaspoon sesame oil, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 1 teaspoon fish sauce, 1 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh ginger, and 2 cloves garlic, then blend till smooth. 

from the Kitchn

* * * * *

I've committed to a month of Rice Bowl Mondays, featuring each of the five sauces in the article. Here you go:

Orange Tahini

Spicy Sriracha Peanut

Mediterranean Olive Sauce

Hoisin Ginger

Herbed Goat Cheese