Ketjap Manis - sweet soy

Ketjap Manis - Ketjap Madja - Kecap Manis - sweet soy sauce from Indonesia

1000 ml - Holland

Also better known as Kecap Manis (soy sauce sweet), this Ketjap Medja is imported from Indonesia via Holland (the Dutch occupied Indonesia from 1602 to 1949) and is sweetened with a syrup of palm sugar.

Thick, like dark amber, late harvest grade B or C maple syrup, this is very dark in color.

To the nose, it smells like soy sauce, less bitter, and though you can smell sweet, it doesn't smell sweet. Perhaps it does not smell refreshing or appealing. Quite frankly, it smells nothing like the taste.

To the mouth, you can take a spoonful without the fear of a salty bomb that soy sauce might instill upon you.

It is smoky, sweet, and finishes with this weird salty edge, like a candy of a Chinese preserved plum. And like the smell, the taste is hard to describe.

There is no pucker-producing bite to this quite delicious treat. This is the best secret ingredient when making a marinade for a flank steak. Drizzle it into fresh carrot soup. On its own, it leans sweet, with the salty undertones enhancing the flavor and less adding a pronounced salt.

Pairing it along with soy sauce, fish sauce, and/or sesame oil is my favorite way. A recent use has been to lightly fry tofu in ghee, and then finish with Ketjap Medja, Shoyu, and a touch of Black Garlic Molasses, along with a healthy sprinkle of sesame seeds on top of rice.

This dark sweet soy sauce is one of the few essential pantry items I do not like to be without!