Few people know that caramel sauce is suitable not only for desserts, but also for meat dishes. It emphasizes the taste of the main ingredient, contrasts with hot spices, makes unusual notes in long-known recipes.
Usually this sauce is prepared specifically for a dish. But you can do it for the future, it is well stored in the refrigerator. In addition to meat and fish dishes, it goes well with grilled vegetables. Let's try to make caramel sauce. A recipe with a photo will help with this.
Ingredients
The sauce is based on caramelization. Usually, plain or cane sugar is used for this. For density and aroma, fruit puree is often added to it. Many recipes for this sauce contain garlic or chili peppers. Spicy taste can be achieved with ginger, asafoetida, cardamom, ground nutmeg. Often used citrus fruits - this gives the dish a piquancy.
Instead of sugar, honey is sometimes used. But in this case, one cannot speak with confidence about caramelization. The sauce is less thick. Some try to drown honey, but heating it to high temperatures, firstly, does not bring the proper effect, and secondly, saturates the dish with harmful components. You can add this product to the sauce only at temperatures up to 70 degrees.
Cooking method
You still do not know how to make caramel sauce? Then remember: in a cast-iron frying pan, it is necessary to heat the sugar, vigorously stirring it with a wooden spatula until it begins to melt. As soon as this process begins, very quickly you need to add liquid ingredients: soy sauce, wine, berry, vegetable or fruit juice. Melted butter gives the dish a delicate texture. And the juice of lime, grapefruit or orange, added at the very end of the preparation, will add the necessary acidity.
If you plan to use fresh herbs, you can’t add it directly to the sauce. It will get wet, lose its taste, create unnecessary clots that violate the beautiful structure. It is advisable to sprinkle it with a ready-made meal over the sauce.
Application area
Most often, caramel sauce is used for meat and poultry dishes. They also serve it to baked fish. It goes well with mushrooms fried in slices or baked in the oven in the form of stuffed baskets. Ready sauce does not require further heat treatment, moreover, it often only harms it. Therefore, the sauce is either watered at the very end of the preparation, or served to the table in special sauces.
You can argue about how to make caramel sauce. But such a diversity of opinions becomes the basis for new recipes. Thanks to this, everyone can pick up and cook what is to their liking.
Caramel Sauce
This sauce is perfect for baked pork, veal, lamb. It is also used in the preparation of meat of wild animals: elk, bear, deer. You can prepare caramel sauce for meat according to the following recipe.
To prepare a kilogram serving of meat you will need about 400 grams of apples, pears or a mixture of them, one and a half tablespoons of sugar, 0.5 teaspoon of honey, 70 grams of soy sauce, spices and a small piece of butter.
In a frying pan, preferably cast iron, sugar needs to be heated very much until it darkens. Then add oil and soy sauce. After boiling and thickening the mixture, it is necessary to lower the fruits cut into thin slices into it. By the way, along with apples and pears, you can use mangoes, pineapples, papaya. When they are cooked, pour the whole sauce into another container and allow it to cool slightly. Baked meat in the oven 5 minutes before being prepared to pour a small amount of sauce and return to the oven. At this time, carefully add honey to the sauce. Depending on the taste, you can slightly salt. Spices and garlic are also added at the end. When the meat is cooked, cut it into thin steaks and generously pour the sauce. Serve with fresh herbs, seasonal or pickled vegetables, homemade bread.
Caramel Chicken Sauce
The Chinese especially love the combination of poultry and spicy-sweet sauce. In their national cuisine, many dishes are based on a combination of contrasting ingredients.
Like most of the great dishes that came to us from the Middle Kingdom, chicken in caramel sauce combines several tastes: sweet, spicy, salty, sour. This effect is achieved by combining garlic with citrus juices, honey, soy sauce. Ginger and greens with a spicy taste are in perfect harmony with a tender bird.
Before cooking chicken, it is advisable to marinate it. Then the finished dish will be juicy, tender, expressive. Subsequently, it is the marinade that can be used to melt caramel. To prepare one kilogram of chicken (wings, legs, thighs, fillets or a mixture of various parts) you will need about 50 grams of soy sauce, a tablespoon of sugar, half lemon juice, 50 grams of white wine, a piece of ginger, a few pieces of prunes.
The principle of preparation is similar to the classic. In a pan, sugar must be caramelized, diluted with liquid and boiled. After adding seasonings, you can add the baked chicken meat. An unusual accent can be made by adding fresh seedless cherries to the recipe. This berry will add not only piquant sourness, but also a wonderful ruby hue. Successful experiments with sliced plums, which in caramelized form go well with delicate chicken meat.
Serving
Even if the sauce is served along with the main course, it is advisable to put on the table and a gravy boat with a small deep spoon on a long handle. Guests can add the sauce directly to the plate at their discretion. It looks most spectacular in transparent gravy boats, allowing you to consider the amber color and a special structure.