Question
Kathleen Aoki
Do you have any suggestions on how to master Chinese cooking without MSG? many premade sauces have MSG, so I'm wondering how to make these sauces take authentic without any additives.
Answer
And yeah, there's MSG in everything, and that's why I stay away from eating out at many Chinese restaurants because I can sometimes see those big containers of monosodium glutamate in the kitchen, and I don't feel comfortable with that. And also, Kathleen, you used the initials of MSG, which brings me to Madison Square Garden, and as a native New Yorker, I'm very happy to see that the New York Knickerbockers won the NBA championship. So thank you for that good reminder. I just don't cook with it. You've got a good soy sauce, and you've got a good, let's see, what else? You've got a good soy sauce. You've got a good tamari. So that's a good base. You've got garlic. You've got green onions. You've got lots and lots of spices and flavors to work with that you do not have to have the MSG in it at all. And that's a personal opinion, but you don't need it to cook to make delicious food. And it sounds to me like you have a really good handle on what kind of healthy and delicious ingredients work in your kitchen. I think sometimes we have to switch our mindset from remembering that when you eat out, there's sometimes three to four times as much sodium in one dish. So you're relating to the sodium, whereas think of a recipe like the clear soup recipe, where at the end, you layer the flavors with mustard and with vinegar. And then you create a delicious new flavor that you come to enjoy. So that's just my two cents for that.
