A new soya sauce alternative

Hold the press! Saucy revelations below… Fancy something oriental but can’t eat wheat or soya? Well fear not…

Ok – you get the message. That’s probably the most cringe-worthy introduction I’ve written to a post but I couldn’t resist. You’ve probably already worked this out from the blog title and the vague opening but we’ve found a soya sauce substitute that doesn’t contain wheat or soya.

I say ‘we’ found it, actually my in-laws found it in an admirably desperate way to include us in a Chinese feast that they were putting on to welcome a family relative from Australia. I’d never even heard of it although once I saw the bottle I realised I’d passed it in some of the larger supermarkets. It’s a Polish product called Przyprawa (made by Winiary). It’s not a million miles from the Maggi Liquid Seasoning that I’ve mentioned before; the key difference being that this one doesn’t come from wheat protein.

I’ve only used it a few times but it seems to do a pretty good job. To anyone with a discerning palette for soya sauce it’s not going to cut the mustard (condiment overload) but if you can’t have soya sauce then it’s better than nothing. Granted as with any of these seasoning sauces it is very high in salt (something in the region of 25g per 100g) and Monosodium Glutamate, so I wouldn’t want to be including too much of it in my diet too regularly.

We used it fairly recently in a peanut butter chicken recipe that we originally found when Piglet was just starting to wean and we’ve enjoyed it so much we’ve had it repeatedly ever since. It’s a very basic slow-cooker meal in that you don’t need to fry anything off in advance; you just mix it all together in a bowl and cook for 8 hours.

If you want the recipe, its:

• 4 chicken breasts (no skin)
• a 400g can of full fat coconut milk
• a cup (185g or so) of peanut butter – best with something like Meridian where it’s just nuts rather than added oil, salt or sugar
• 45ml (3 tablespoons) of Winiary liquid seasoning
• 45ml (3 tablespoons) of honey or maple syrup (avoid honey if under one year old)
• 30ml (2 tablespoons) of Shaoxing Rice Wine
• 5 cloves of garlic, minced
• A dash of hot chilli powder (very much to taste)

Lay the chicken breasts (trimmed as necessary) at the bottom of the slow cooker pan. Mix all the other ingredients in a bowl until an even consistency. (I find it helps to run the can of coconut milk under hot water until the fat and water have melted back into one – shake once hot to combine). Pour the mixture over the top of the chicken and cook on low for 8 hours. Once finished shred the chicken into the sauce and serve with boiled rice and vegetables. Sprinkle with unsalted roast peanuts (because you really don’t need any more salt!