HERE WE COME!!!!This was an exciting trip for our sauce bottles! But especially for the Sweet & Spicy Chili Sauce that has its root from Korean Chili Paste! During my short trip to Korea, I had to pay a visit to the Kyong Bok Goong Palace. This 500 years old dynasty perfected the use of spicy chili paste during its time and has passed its culinary culture directly to the modern-day cuisine you find from Korea.
Korean cuisine and sauces are known for its balance between all the flavors and also known for liberal usage of garlic and chili. And I have just done that when I created this sauce for my restaurant. Even though it is heavily modified to suit modern New American Cuisine that embraces wide variety of cuisines across the world, I wanted to have one sauce that had its root from Korea. This sauce has been touted as one of the most unique and flavorful hot sauces that have versatile uses. So it was fitting for me to make a quick tour of the palace where it ruled Chosun Dynasty before the modern day Korea established. Now you know this sauce has a root that is pretty deep!
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Besides our online store, if you live near Bryan/College Station, Texas , you can grab our sauce bottles from Zeitman's Grocery in Downtown Bryan! It features really cool artisan sauces, drinks, meats, preserves, and cheese from really cool places and also feature an amazing deli that will blow your socks out! Be sure to check out Zeitman's and also grab a bottle while shopping there!
I am on my way to Korea to do some business. So while I am waiting on the plane, I am going to update you on our Miso Sauce and hope I can share some journey across Korea during my short business trip there.
Sweet & Savory Miso Sauce This was Inspired by a Japanese Classic. It goes back to days when my grandma will prepare this miso coated salmon or pollack dish at home with side of rice. My grandma is Korean Japanese who were born and raised in Japan. So, a lot of her food she ate and learned to cook are hybrid of Korean and Japanese cuisine. So naturally when I started my own restaurants, I wanted to take a page out of her cooking but modernizing and westernizing it to work better with American taste as she once did it in Japan for with her Korean family. This sauce combines saltiness, sweetness, subtle tartness and bitterness with full load of Umami! This sauce has it all in terms of hitting your taste buds! This Sauce will help you make several gourmet Japanese Inspired Cuisines at your own kitchen with ease. You can marinate fish or meat with it to roast or broil. You can make great sauce to accompany roasted or sauteed vegetables. It can also be great with sushi rolls as a condiment and can be diluted with water and vinegar to make great miso salad dressing. If you add grated Pickled ginger, soy sauce, water, and sesame oil, it can turn into delicious miso ginger dressings to dip Grilled Steak or Fish as well. It is very versatile sauce to make so many different items at home. Let's talk about Liquid Black Gold, a.k.a.
Balsamic Red Wine Glaze. Inspired by an Italian Classic, this glaze is a great way to brighten the flavor with sweetness and tartness. My first experience with this type of balsamic reduction was in NYC in early 2006 when I visited the city. Went to several restaurants and noticed they were accenting dishes with thick balsamic vinegar, but it was more than just thick balsamic vinegar. The chefs and staff all told me that they reduce balsamic vinegar and add sugar, honey, syrup, or other thickeners to have more potent flavor of Balsamic without making a mess by spilling things everywhere. This was right when molecular gastronomy was a hit and people were using various thickener to "gel" otherwise a liquid content. I wanted more simpler "real food" approach. So, I decided to reduce balsamic vinegar and pinot noir mix that I use for poaching cherry for my desserts. That poaching liquid had cinnamon, clove, and anise. While I love it, some folks didn't necessarily enjoy the spices that were part of that reduction. Over next few months, I simplified the recipe and process to have potent and flavorful glaze that can be enjoyed by more people! Very simple four ingredients in perfect ratio to deliver well developed flavor! In my opinion these sauces are very unique in flavor profile and complexity unlike any other products currently sold in the market. These are not trying to be a gourmet or restaurant quality sauces. These are Sauces from Restaurants created by me and it's about time our wonderful friends living outside of Brazos County to get to know me better. Grab a bottle of my sauce and let's cook up a meal with me. These sauces will help you cook at home as if I was your own sous chef! But going back to the main discussion point today, let's talk more about a specific sauce. Today we will talk about my Sweet & Spicy Chili Sauce Profile It is Inspired by Korean Chili Sauce. This has a great blend of heat and flavor through usage of Chili Paste, Bean Paste, Garlic, and Vinegar to make full bodied texture and flavor profile. Unlike some hot sauce that starts out with water or vinegar, this starts with heavier and more substantial paste and give much thicker and flavor packed flavor composition. It is thick enough where you could even dilute a portion of the sauce with some water to thin it out if you like thinner sauces. Heck you could dilute with half water and half rice vinegar If you want. Sauce is made to be good straight out of the bottle but versatile enough to be mixed or diluted depending on the purpose. But just look at these beauties being created! And I wasn't joking these are the same sauces being used at our restaurants. These bulk packs are for our restaurants and bottles are for consumers. However, they are born out of same pot and they are equal in strength and flavor! Final Products ready for packing. Grab a bottle today and make some delish meals with it. You won't regret it!
Since I started my restaurant, I have served many distinguished guests from national and international levels at my restaurants.
To name a few, Former President George H.W. Bush, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, Former U.S. State Representative Bill Flores, Famed Physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking, Musician Tony Bennet & Willie Nelson, Actor Chuck Norris & Denny Glover, and celebrity chefs such as Robert Irvine have frequented my restaurants. I have a reputation as one of the most creative and reputable chefs in town and these sauces are certainly field tested and refined over the years of serving over a million of guests over the past 15 years between all the restaurants I have operated. This is one of the main reason why I can recommend these sauces to our friends and family. These sauces are not something that was made overnight and bottled. These are truly tested and refined over the years I have operated my restaurants. From my kitchen to yours. Unlike most of the consumer sauce products that are designed for the general public, these sauces are designed and created for my own restaurant's use and to those who demand restaurant level of quality and flavor.
That means each sauce bottles are what you can find in my own restaurants' kitchen as my staff create delicious meals for our guests. These sauces are designed to share my culinary philosophy of sharing food that was produced from the heart. I have met so many guests from all over the world and all across the nation. Some guests can only dine out at my restaurants while they make a quick visit to town. This ultimately made me decide to create these bottled sauces, so they can take piece of their culinary memories back home. Now you can have my balsamic sauce even in Korea by simply taking the bottle with you. Just a short blog about my Life in the Sauce Making Business and trying to share the story about us and story behind making these sauces.
Texas has never seen sauces like these before! Well, that is unless you have eaten at my restaurants that is. I have a Korean/American heritage and I have utilized my own family heritage and years of living in Texas to develop unique sauces for several restaurants I own and operate in Bryan/College Station, TX since 2007. As Texas is getting bigger and more diverse, I wanted to showcase my family's Texas Roots and what I can offer to the amazing variety of cuisines that are currently represented by good people of Texas. So I have created 3 sauce bottles to start based on popularity and versatility. And you may ask why just 3? Why not more? Well it costs a lot of money to get sauces registered and tested. :) Will share that part of journey later. |
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December 2022
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