Cooking caramel sauce for meat and fish dishes

Few people know that caramel sauce is suitable not only for desserts, but also for meat dishes. He emphasizes the taste of the main ingredient, contrasts with spicy seasonings, introduces unusual notes in long familiar recipes.

Usually this sauce is prepared specifically for a dish. But you can make it and for the future, it is well stored in the refrigerator. In addition to meat and fish dishes, it is well combined with grilled vegetables. Let's try to make caramel sauce. The recipe with the photo will help in this.

Ingredients

The sauce is based on the caramelization process. Usually, it is used for ordinary or cane sugar. For the density and aroma, it is often added fruit puree. Many recipes for this sauce contain garlic or chili. Spicy taste can be achieved with the help of ginger, asafoetida, cardamom, ground muscat. Often used citrus - it gives the dish a piquancy.

Instead of sugar, honey is sometimes used. But in this case it is impossible to speak with confidence about caramelization. The sauce is less dense. Some try to heat honey, but its heating to high temperatures, firstly, does not bring the desired effect, and secondly, it saturates the dish with harmful components. Add this product to the sauce only at temperatures up to 70 degrees.

Cooking method

You still do not know how to make caramel sauce? Then remember: in a cast-iron frying pan it is necessary to heat sugar, vigorously stirring it with a wooden spatula, until it starts to melt. Once this process begins, very quickly add liquid ingredients: soy sauce, wine, berry, vegetable or fruit juice. Melted butter gives the dish a delicate texture. And the juice of lime, grapefruit or orange, added at the very end of the preparation, will bring the necessary sourness.

If you plan to use fresh greens, you can not add it directly to the sauce. She will get wet, lose taste, create unnecessary clots that break beautiful structure. It is advisable to sprinkle it with a ready-made dish on top of the sauce.

Application area

Most often caramel sauce is used for dishes of meat and poultry. Serve it and to the baked fish. It fits perfectly to mushrooms, fried pieces or baked in the oven in the form of stuffed baskets. The finished sauce does not require further heat treatment, moreover, it often only hurts it. Therefore, the sauce either watered the dish at the very end of the preparation, or served it to the table in special saucepans.

How to cook caramel sauce, you can argue for a long time. But this variety of opinions becomes the basis for new recipes. Thanks to this, everyone can pick up and cook something that he likes.

Meat with caramel sauce

This sauce suits perfectly to baked pork, veal, lamb. It is also used in the preparation of meat of wild animals: elk, bear, deer. Prepare caramel sauce for meat can be on the following recipe.

For the preparation of a kilogram portion of meat, about 400 grams of apples, pears or mixtures thereof, one and a half tablespoons of sugar, 0.5 teaspoons of honey, 70 grams of soy sauce, spices and a small piece of butter will be needed.

In a frying pan, preferably cast iron, sugar should be heated up strongly, until it darkens. Then add butter and soy sauce. After boiling and thickening of the mixture, it is necessary to lower the fruit cut into thin slices. By the way, along with apples and pears, you can use mango, pineapple, papaya. When they are fried, pour the whole sauce into another container and allow it to cool slightly. Baked meat in the oven for 5 minutes until ready to pour a small amount of sauce and return to the oven. At this time in the sauce, add honey carefully. Depending on the resulting taste, you can pour a little. Spices and garlic are also added at the end. When the meat is baked, cut it into thin steaks and generously pour the sauce. To the table to serve with fresh herbs, seasonal or pickled vegetables, homemade bread.

Caramel sauce for chicken

Especially love the combination of poultry and hot and sour sauce Chinese. In their national cuisine, many dishes are based on the combination of contrasting ingredients.

Like most fine dishes that came to us from the Middle Kingdom, the chicken in caramel sauce combines several tastes: sweet, spicy, salty, sour. This effect is achieved by combining garlic with citrus juices, honey, soy sauce. Perfectly harmonizes with a tender bird ginger and greens with a sharp taste.

Before you cook a chicken, it is advisable to marinate it. Then the ready dish will be juicy, gentle, expressive. Subsequently, it is the marinade that can be used for melting caramel. For the preparation of one kilogram of chicken (wings, legs, thighs, fillets or a mixture of different parts) you need about 50 grams of soy sauce, a tablespoon of sugar, juice of half a lemon, 50 grams of white wine, a slice of ginger, a few pieces of prunes.

The principle of cooking is similar to the classical one. In a frying pan you need to caramelize sugar, dilute it with liquid and boil it. After the addition of seasonings, it is possible to fill in the baked chicken meat. An unusual accent can be made by adding to the recipe a fresh, cherry-free cherry. This berry will add not only piquant sourness, but also a wonderful ruby tint. Successful experiments with slices of plum, which in caramelized form are perfectly combined with tender chicken meat.

Laying

Even if the sauce is served with the main dish, it is advisable to put on the table and saucepan with a small deep spoon on the long handle. Guests can, at their discretion, add sauce directly to the plate. The most impressive is in transparent saucepans, allowing to consider the amber color and special structure.