Raspberries are nature’s SweetTarts. For me, they’re always just slightly too sweet and too tart, but I moved into a house with so many raspberry bushes that for a long time, you could check into “Amanda’s Bush” on Foursquare. My overabundance means I have tons to play around with, and I’ve been waiting all week for the first ones to ripen to investigate a hunch.
It turns out, I’m brilliant.
I was convinced raspberries and soy sauce could be interesting together, and they are more than interesting, they are a tangy umami bomb. Raspberries are a little too sweet, and soy sauce is a little too salty, but they marry and balance each other out really well. The taste is hard to describe, but it is bright without being overly acidic and packed with umami. I have always loved ponzu, a citrus soy sauce, but this takes it one step further in intensity.
Photo: Amanda Blum
In the last twenty four hours I’ve put it on everything I could get my hands on. Roasted cauliflower, pork chops, roasted chicken sausage, and my favorite, a cornmeal crusted trout. When you marry the two ingredients together, they no longer tastes like raspberries or soy sauce; it’s like hitting a dish with a chunky slap of awesome.
Here’s how to replicate my moment of sheer genius.
Raspberry Soy Sauce
Ingredients
One cup of fresh raspberries½ cup of soy sauceMuddle the raspberries with a fork until they are a pulp. Pour in soy sauce, and stir until combined.
That’s it. That’s the recipe. It’s better the longer it sits, and you can keep it in the fridge for a week or so. Because of the raspberry to soy sauce, ratio, the raspberries will eventually sour, but you should be able to get pints of raspberries at summer prices for the next few months, while I figure out how to preserve this bolt of lightning.
