XO sauce
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| XO sauce | |||||||||||
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| An XO sauce gift pack produced by Lee Kum Kee | |||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | XO 醬 | ||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | XO 酱 | ||||||||||
| Cantonese Jyutping | XO zoeng3 | ||||||||||
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XO sauce is a spicy seafood sauce. It was developed in the 1980s in Hong Kong for Cantonese cuisine. The sauce is made of roughly chopped dried seafoods, such as scallop, dried fish and shrimp that has been cooked with chilli, onion, garlic and oil. Once a prestigious concoction confined to gourmet seafood restaurants, XO sauce can now be found as a pre-made product on grocery stores shelves, produced by Asian food companies like Lee Kum Kee, ANJI, and Amoy.
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[edit] Etymology
The name XO sauce comes from fine XO (extra-old) cognac, which is a popular western liquor in Hong Kong and considered by many to be a chic product there. In addition the term XO is often used in the popular culture of Hong Kong to denote high quality, prestige, and luxury. In fact, XO sauce has been marketed in the same manner as the French liquor, using packaging of similar colour schemes.
In Hong Kong English, "XO" is pronounced "ix-oh" (IPA:ˌɪks ˈoʊ), instead of "ex-oh" (/ˌɛks ˈoʊ/).
[edit] Uses
XO sauce can be used as a condiment on the side of main dishes or used in cooking to enhance the flavour of fish, meats, vegetables, and otherwise bland foods such as tofu or noodles. Home cooks often use this sauce as the chief flavorant for fried rice.
[edit] Ingredients
Typical ingredients of XO sauce include:
- Diced onion
- Dried scallop
- Fresh red chilli
- Ground black pepper
- Jinhua ham, or Jamon or Prosciutto (sometimes known as Parma ham)
- Large dried shrimp, shelled
- Minced garlic
- rapeseed oil
- Salted cured fish
- Tiny dried shrimp, unshelled
