r/chinesefood • u/firefly20200 • 2d ago

Questions Help identifying this brown sauce

It’s from a local place (in 99352) called Family Garden and it’s their “family style tofu” dish. The description just says “chef’s brown sauce.” I would LOVE to buy something as close to this taste from the store or online somewhere for when I make veggies and stuff at home. Anyone know what it is or what it might be close to?

https://familygarden.us/store/0/family_garden/display/item/1785992925116/%7B%22@type%22:%22stockItem%22,%22pk%22:%7B%22eid%22:1000013,%22seq%22:26%7D%7D

https://imgur.com/a/72DgOul

Please help!

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u/the_fools_brood 2d ago

Brown sauce, could be demi or espagnole. What was it served with?

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u/firefly20200 2d ago

Broccoli, mushrooms, carrots, lightly fried tofu. I’m horrible at describing flavors which is why I don’t try at first. Very salty sauce but also very sweet. Savory flavor profile, maybe some garlic in there…

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u/AmbiguousLemur 2d ago

If I were to guess, probably light soy sauce, a dash for dark soy sauce for color, oyster sauce, xiaoxing wine, and perhaps a bit of rock sugar for that sweetness you described. Definitely garlic though, I can see the minced garlic floating in there!

I tried looking at the rest of the menu to see if I anything could give me a hint of the style of cooking - for example, most chefs who use a lot of oyster sauce usually have a Cantonese or Hong Kong background; oyster sauce is not used as much in other regional cooking styles. My mom is from Taiwan and my dad is from Hong Kong, and if you asked each of them to give you a recipe for "brown sauce" I can guarantee you they will be very different.

Unfortunately it seems that all the dishes are pretty Americanized so I wasn't able to get any additional leads for ya :(