Honey and Soy Gravy

Soy sauce is salt and glutamate, honey is sugar, rice vinegar is the acid that stops the two of them being sickly. Reduce them into a good stock and you get a glossy gravy somewhere between a Sunday gravy and a glaze. It suits roast chicken, pork belly, sticky ribs and roast duck, and it is very good over rice.

Ingredients

Makes about 350ml, enough for four plates

• 450ml (16fl oz) chicken stock
• 2 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 1 tbsp runny honey
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar or cider vinegar
• 10g fresh ginger grated fine
• 1 clove garlic grated fine
• 1½ tsp cornflour
• 2 tbsp cold water
• 1 tsp toasted sesame oil to finish, optional

Kit

• Wide saucepan
• Balloon whisk
• Fine grater
• Small cup

Method

1. Put the stock, soy sauce, honey, ginger and garlic into a wide saucepan and bring it to a boil over a high heat.

2. Let it boil steadily for six to eight minutes, uncovered, until the volume has dropped by about a quarter. The smell will change from stocky to noticeably sweet and salty as the honey concentrates.

3. Turn the heat down to a simmer. Mix the cornflour with the cold water in a cup until there is no grit in the bottom, then stir it again just before you use it.

4. Pour the slurry into the pan in a thin stream while whisking. Keep whisking for a minute, and you will see the gravy go from cloudy to clear and glossy as the starch cooks out.

5. Add the rice vinegar and simmer for thirty seconds more. Adding the acid after the thickening means the cornflour holds its structure properly.

6. Take it off the heat and taste. It should be salty first, sweet second, with the ginger arriving at the back. Do not add salt, the soy has done that job.

7. Stir in the sesame oil if you are using it and serve straight away. This is a gravy that clings to meat rather than pooling on a plate, so pour it over rather than into a well.

Tips worth knowing

• Two tablespoons of soy in 450ml is the working amount. Three makes the gravy too salty to eat with any quantity of meat and you would need to dilute the whole thing to fix it.
• One tablespoon of honey is enough. Two and it stops behaving like a gravy and starts behaving like a glaze that sets tacky on the plate.
• Use dark soy for colour and light soy for salt. If you only have light soy, use one and a half tablespoons and accept a paler gravy.
• Grate the ginger and garlic rather than chopping, so they melt into the gravy and you do not need to strain it.

Keeping and reheating

Keeps four days in the fridge and freezes for three months, though cornflour thickened sauces can go slightly slack after freezing. Reheat gently and if it has thinned, whisk in a little more cornflour slurry and simmer for a minute.

Questions people ask