XO sauce | |||||||||||
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An XO sauce gift pack produced by Lee Kum Kee | |||||||||||
Traditional Chinese | XO 醬 | ||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | XO 酱 | ||||||||||
Cantonese Jyutping | XO zoeng3 | ||||||||||
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XO sauce is a spicy seafood sauce used in Chinese cuisines especially in southern China such as Guangdong province and Hong Kong.
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Developed in the 1980s in Hong Kong for Cantonese cuisine, it is made of roughly chopped dried seafoods including scallops, dried fish and shrimp and cooked with chili peppers, onions, garlic and oil. Once a prestigious concoction confined to gourmet seafood restaurants, XO sauce can now be found as a pre-made product on grocery store shelves, produced by Asian food companies like Lee Kum Kee, ANJI, and Amoy.
The name XO sauce comes from fine XO (extra-old) cognac, which is a popular Western liquor in Hong Kong and considered by many to be a chic product there. In addition the term XO is often used in the popular culture of Hong Kong to denote high quality, prestige, and luxury. In fact, XO sauce has been marketed in the same manner as the French liquor, using packaging of similar colour schemes.[1]
In Hong Kong English, "XO" is pronounced "ix-oh" /ˌɪks ˈoʊ/ instead of "ex-oh" /ˌɛks ˈoʊ/.
XO sauce can be used as a condiment on the side of main dishes or used in cooking to enhance the flavour of fish, meats, vegetables, and otherwise bland foods such as tofu or noodles. Home cooks often use this sauce as the chief flavorant for fried rice.
Typical ingredients of XO sauce include Dried scallop, red chilli, Jinhua ham, dried shrimp, garlic and canola oil. Some other recipes also call for salted cured fish and diced onion.
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