Friday Favorite of the Week - Chapter 6

hehehe.

I am laughing because this weeks favorite will be somewhat ODD to most of you out there. One of our patients brought us a jar of this:

What the heck is it? It's "XO Sauce." And wtf is XO sauce? According to this Wiki article, "XO sauce is a spicy seafood sauce. It was developed in the 1980s in Hong Kong for Cantonese cuisine."

The list of ingredients was so amusing to me: soybean oil, dried shrimp, dried scallop, dried garlic, shallot, chili pepper, shrimp roe and oyster extractions (whatever THAT means.)

The ingredients alone should have turned me off right away, but I was so intrigued! I had some fried rice with me that day and according to my coworker, that would be an ideal food to add the XO sauce to...

TELL ME WHY IT IS THE BEST STUFF EVER! I just added maybe a quarter teaspoon to my rice and mixed it in. Liked it. Then I realized I wanted more, so I did. I have an Asian tongue so the pungent odor and strong fish taste may be a bit too much to you, but I liked it very much. Reminds me of the fish and other weird, preserved, fermented foods that my iron-stomached Inang would eat and feed me. A little spicy and a little salty. Loved it.

Who woulda thunk that dried seafood and EXTRACTIONS would be so good?

The Full List of Friday Favorites