Pot Sticker Dipping Sauce

This fantastic sauce was reverse-engineered from the excellent example at a local Szechuan joint. Key to this condiment is the base of soy sauce and vinegar. A ratio of 1:1 is a good starting point. A little sweetness is also required. Ginger, garlic, green onions, and chili heat make up the rest of the show.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 fl oz high quality light soy sauce
• 2 fl oz rice vinegar
• 1 teaspoon Huy Fong Chili Garlic Sauce
• 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
• 1 teaspoon sweetener (sugar, agave syrup, etc)
• 1 tablespoon sliced scallion/green onion
• 1 teaspoon Hot chili oil (or Szechuan chili oil)

Steps

1. Mix everything except the chili oil together and put it in a jar. 

Let's not make this complicated for once.

Well, there is one complication, which is why we left out the chili oil.

If you will be refrigerating the sauce, don't add the oil until you are plating. The oil will solidify when it is cold, which makes the sauce hard to serve. If you try to stir the cold sauce, the congealed oil will just stick to your spoon.

For that matter, when serving, let the sauce warm to room temperature. No one wants to dunk their pot stickers into cold dipping sauce. 

Storage

This will keep for weeks in the fridge. You could store it at room temperature, but I think it stays good longer when kept cold. 

Recipe Teardown

This is about as simple as a recipe gets, but to really nail it you need to get the right ingredients. 

Soy Sauce

Spring for a high quality soy sauce for this recipe. Pearl River Bridge "Golden Label Superior Light Soy Sauce" is really good, and it's what I use when I'm making something where the soy sauce has a big role. Their lower-tier "Superior" soy sauce is not quite as tasty, but is easier to find and still a step up from Kikkoman.

Different soy sauces have different amounts of salt. It's possible that you might need to adjust the 1:1 soy sauce to vinegar ratio by a little bit to get the right amount of saltiness. If you use a low-sodium soy sauce, you might even need to add some salt.

Vinegar

Rice vinegar is best for this recipe. I've been happy using Marukan rice vinegar, which is a Japanese brand, and easy to find anywhere.

The Marukan tastes great in this recipe, but I intend to look for a Chinese white rice vinegar. (I'm honestly not sure if such a thing exists, but I assume it must.)

Do not use Chinese black vinegar--it's good stuff, but the taste is all wrong for this recipe.

If you don't have rice vinegar, you can substitute Western white wine vinegar.

Huy Fong Chili Garlic Sauce

Don't substitute Huy Fong's famous Sriracha. This stuff is different (and also delicious). Get some.

Oils

Some Chinese hot chili oil is the finishing touch on this condiment. You can use Szechuan-style chili oil if you prefer. Sometimes I add scallion oil, too.

Remember not to add oil to the sauce if you are refrigerating it!