Unagi sauce is a sweet and savory sauce from Japan. Perfect on grilled fish and grilled meat dishes. Also the secret sauce in the socalled green dragon sushi roll, with the deep fried shrimp. When making unagi sauce at home, you can tweek the flavor components and give it more depth than what you could buy in a store. If you want to keep the sauce vegan, it will miss some depth, but it is still very acceptable. Regardless of being vegan or not, the sauce does not contain mono-sodium glutaminate (MSG) or any other additives. It is pure and you can keep it in a tightly closed container in the fridge for a few months. When opened use it within 2 weeks to stay on the safe side.
The art of making Unagi sauce
Unagi sauce requires at minimum mirin (sweetened Japanese rice wine), sugar and Japanese soy sauce. In this version the sauce is vegan. To deepen the flavors, also use rice vinegar, sake and panfried or grilled eelbones. As a substitute for grilled eel bones we can use the shavings of fermented, dried and smoked skip tuna (katsuobushi). When immediately after the simmering the sauce is stored under air tight seal, it can last for months in the fridge. Otherwise use it up in 2 weeks.
Did you know in Japanese restaurants famous for their grilled eel, the sauce is every day mixed with fresh ingredients and simmered with new grilled eel bones. The simmering will keep the sauce food safe.
Special equipment
strainer
Unagi Sauce
Ingredients
for the sauce
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1/3 cup mirin
- 1/3 cup Japanese light soysauce
- 3 tbsp sake
- 1 2/3 tbsp rice vinegar
- 1/4 cup loosely stagged katsuobushi flakes as substitute of pan fried eel bones/head
- some panfried eel bones/head (if you have, multiply the above amounts by 2 or 3) and do not use Katsuobushi flakes
Instructions
Making the sauce
- measure the katsuobushi flakes when using
- measure the rice vinegar, the sake and mix these with the flakes
- let stand for 30 min
- meanwhile measure the sugar and the mirin and add to a small pan. Start to slowly warm. Stir
- measure the soy sauce
- after 30 min strain the flakes from the rice vinegar sake mixture and add the liquid to the mirin and sugar
- Continue to warm and add the soy sauce, while making sure that all the sugar is dissolved
- bring to a simmer and roughly reduce the volume by half. When you see that there are many more small bubbles coming, you will be almost done
- Store the hot sauce in a air tight container and let cool. Remember that the viscosity of the sauce rapidly will increase upon cooling. (The ability to pour the sauce will reduce upon cooling)
Notes
Food allergy & intolerance information: soy, some tiny amount of alcohol may be left
Remarks
Add the soy sauce when the other ingredients are close to boiling point, as soy sauce easily burns at high fire. Reduce the sauce therefore at low fire.
