XO sauce

XO sauce is a spicy seafood sauce that originated from Hong Kong. It is commonly used most in southern Chinese regions like Guangdong province.

History

Developed in the 1980s in Hong Kong for Cantonese cuisine, XO sauce is made of roughly chopped dried seafoods, including scallops, dried fish and shrimp, and subsequently cooked with chili peppers, onions, and garlic. This dried seafood-based sauce bears similarity to the Fujianese Shacha sauce. Spring Moon, the Peninsula Hong Kong's Chinese restaurant, is often credited with the invention of XO sauce, although others claim the sauce's origin in the urban area of Kowloon.

Etymology

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.

Sauce

In cooking, a sauce is liquid, cream, or semi-solid food served on or used in preparing other foods. Sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavor, moisture, and visual appeal to another dish. Sauce is a French word taken from the Latin salsa, meaning salted. Possibly the oldest sauce recorded is garum, the fish sauce used by the Ancient Greeks.

Sauces need a liquid component, but some sauces (for example, pico de gallo salsa or chutney) may contain more solid components than liquid. Sauces are an essential element in cuisines all over the world.

Sauces may be used for savory dishes or for desserts. They can be prepared and served cold, like mayonnaise, prepared cold but served lukewarm like pesto, or can be cooked like bechamel and served warm or again cooked and served cold like apple sauce. Some sauces are industrial inventions like Worcestershire sauce, HP Sauce, or nowadays mostly bought ready-made like soy sauce or ketchup, others still are freshly prepared by the cook. Sauces for salad are called salad dressing. Sauce is made by deglazing a pan which are called pan sauces.

Sauce (disambiguation)

Sauce is a liquid condiment or accompaniment to food.

Sauce may also refer to:

Place names

See also

Saucer pass

The saucer pass is an ice hockey technique in which the puck is passed to another player such that it flies in the air like a flying saucer. This makes the pass very difficult to intercept by opposing players but it will still land flat on the ice making it simple to control for the receiving player. The saucer pass is widely used nowadays due to the difficulty of intercepting it. It requires a high degree of skill to perform a saucer pass to a team member while also making it difficult for an opposing player to intercept it. The typical height used for a saucer pass depends on the number of opposing players surrounding the player initiating the pass. If the pass is in front of the goal within a few meters, it usually raises a maximum of 30 centimeters above the ice level. In the case of a "torpedo attack"—a saucer pass covering tens of meters, often starting from the passer's defensive zone—the pass can easily rise over 3 meters from the ice to avoid being captured by an opposing player's glove (capturing a pass with a stick above one's own shoulder level or above goal height is prohibited close to a goal).