Ponzu Sauce

Ponzu sauce is a Japanese citrusy soy sauce used as a dipping sauce, great with fish or used as a sauce for asian noodle salad. It is available in bottles at Asian markets but I make my own using a recipe I learned from Chef Gubbins of San Diego.

Sliced ginger, crushed whole garlic cloves, bonito flakes, orange (cut in half and squeezed), soy sauce and mirin (sweet rice wine) are placed in a jar. I place this closely sealed jar in my frig and it keeps for quite some time and should be at least a week old before using. The flavor deepens with time and as I use some, I add more soy sauce and mirin to it to keep it going.

Bonito flakes are dried shavings of a type of tuna called bonito, called katsuo-bushi in Japanese and found in Asian markets, one bag will take awhile to use up so I store mine in the freezer. Bonito flakes are also used to make dashi, which is the basic stock in making miso soup. Mirin is sweet rice wine, comes seasoned or unseasoned, I prefer the unseasoned which has a cleaner flavor. This I have seen at some supermarkets but probably not in all markets.


Ponzu Recipe

1/4 cup Sliced ginger
4 - 5 whole crushed garlic cloves
1/2 cup bonito flakes
1 orange, sliced in half and squeezed
lite soy sauce
mirin

Place all ingredients in a jar with a tight fitting lid and pour in 1/2 soy sauce and 1/2 mirin.

Keeps for a long time in the frig.