I grew up eating all kinds of vegetables with oyster sauce; broccoli is my favourite, with mushrooms coming in a close second. Broccoli and oyster sauce are a match made in heaven and can easily be turned into a delicious main course by adding noodles and a protein like tofu or beef.
Oyster sauce is incredibly handy because it can transform an ingredient or dish all on its own. As much as I love sauces like Pad Thai, Teriyaki and Satay, sometimes I want the convenience of grabbing a single bottle from the fridge - no measuring and mixing. It makes a brilliant marinade for meat and if you’re vegetarian or vegan there’s a version made with shitake mushrooms.
The flavour is multi-layered, salty and slightly sweet; Nagi from RecipeTin Eats describes it as ten sauces in one bottle. It’s a key component of the sauce for her Pad See Ew recipe, which I recently made - it was so good I ate the entire thing in a state of disbelief while trying not to think about the sodium content*.
For the evenings where I can't be bothered to cook but I want something easy, delicious and satisfying, I make udon noodles with broccoli, cashews, oyster sauce and some kind of protein - salmon if I've got any. This five ingredient dinner comes together in less than 15 minutes and on many occasions has saved me from getting a takeaway.
* My version uses half the amount of sauce.
