How To Make Vinegar Dipping Sauce For Lumpia

In the Philippines, whenever we have a finger food or any other home cooked favorite meal served on the dining table, we would always ask for a dipping sauce. One of the best things about foods in the Philippines is the availability of all sorts of different dipping sauce that goes along with it. It can either be spicy, salty, sweet or even sour, there is always that special kind of dipping that makes every dish complete. We usually call it ?sawsawan? in our native language. Sawsawan means ?dip?. Whenever a certain dish calls for it, we would not want to miss dipping it in sawsawan whether the dish is grilled or fried.?

Vinegar is the most commonly used dipping sauce. It adds a rich taste of vinegar to dishes such as Grilled Liempo ( Pork belly), and or Chicharon (Pork Cracklings), Fried Calamari (Battered Fried Squid) and the famous street food in the Philippines which is the Kwek-Kwek (Battered Quail Eggs). The most widely used vinegar in the Philippines is the cane vinegar. Not only is it readily accessible, sugar cane used for cane vinegar is most popular in our country. Other types of vinegar are Coconut vinegar and white wine vinegar are also commonly used.

Let us first talk about a little background about the nature of Vinegar. Anything that contains ethanol can be used to make vinegar. Now, how to make vinegar? Making a vinegar involves two processes: first, the yeast that feeds on the sugar and ferments into alcohol. Next, a good bacteria feeds on the alcohol and then ferments it into by-products. The bacteria culture is harmless is called the ?Mother of Vinegar?. The Sour tasting or acidic tasting by products is what we are looking for to satisfy and enjoy our love for food. Did you know that aside from giving the sourness taste, it also has the ability to change the color as well as the texture of some of the food.?

One of the famous fried dishes in the Philippines is the Fried Lumpia (Philippine Spring Roll).?The perfect and most common dipping sauce is made with Vinegar to make the taste more intensifying. Today I will be sharing with you the recipe on how to make Vinegar Dipping Sauce, although Lumpia can also be dipped in a sweet chili dipping sauce. After all, it is what makes Asian foods all about, a rich and intense flavor of delicious dish.

The ingredients can be readily accessible. It can be easily found sold at the wet market or at your nearest supermarket. And most of the time, it can be found at your kitchen since most of the ingredients are also used for cooking other dishes.

RECIPE FOR VINEGAR DIPPING SAUCE

Total preparation time: 5 minutes

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups of vinegar of choice (White or cane)
• ? cup soy sauce
• ? tsp sugar
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 small sized red onion, minced
• ? tsp of ground black pepper
• ? tsp salt

Optional:

• 2 tablespoons of onion springs
• 1 teaspoon Chili

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Combine the sugar, vinegar, and soy sauce on a small saucepan on medium heat.?
2. Mix until both the salt and sugar are dissolved.
3. Simmer for approximately 3 minutes, then remove from heat.
4. Next, add the garlic, red onion and ground black pepper. Continuously stir until the mixture are blended.?
5. Allow vinegar sauce to cool down.?
6. In a bottle or closed-lid jar, transfer the cooled down vinegar sauce for storage in the refrigerator. You may get only desired amount as dipping for your food.?

If circumstances should occur wherein you will not have the time to make your own Vinegar dipping sauce, I recommend you buy Datu Puti Cane Vinegar. The most popular and widely used vinegar in the Philippines. This is also used to make Vinegar Dipping sauce the easy way, which means no-cook way. You just have to mix the Datu Puti Cane Vinegar, garlic, salt and pepper into a medium sized bowl then serve, that?s it.?

Interested in other recipes? Feel free to comment below. Also, let me know your experience along the way. I look forward to hearing from you.