This question came up one time I was watching a video on TikTok of a guy that was completely outraged because he went to a Japanese restaurant and he was told that eel sauce wasn’t actually made of it. At that moment I was honestly shocked but as you know, we cannot believe everything we see on the internet so I decided I couldn't be left with the doubt.
For those who aren’t exactly sure of which sauce I am talking about, it is also known as Unagi sauce. This is a dark, thick, sweet sauce. It is used in Japanese cooking to pair it with different types of sushi or other dishes.
For you to understand, I have looked everywhere for answers. I’ve read books about Japanese, Chinese and Asian food in general and many of these sources state that this sauce in fact doesn’t contain eel. It is only named like that because due to its nature of flavors it pairs fantastically with sushi that actually contains that ingredient.
So now, the real question is, what is this sauce made of? Initially it has been said that it is just a simple reduction of soy and sugar, which makes it very similar to a teriyaki sauce. It is said that to this teriyaki sauce, there’s an addition of hondashi (dashi flakes) to add an umami flavor to the sauce. Hondashi is a well-known and used ingredient in Japanese cooking because of its facility to dissolve in hot water. You can know more about this in my other post.
It is also known as a regular reduction of four basic ingredients: mirin, sake, soy and sugar until it reduces to a third of the initial mixture. However, after all these many recipes I was able to find, I decided to ask around important chefs who I’ve had the pleasure to meet.
They told me two things; first, the one I’ve mentioned above, that by industrializing the sauce, different methods to find the umami flavor are utilized. The second thing is that the original way of preparing this sauce is with nitsume. Nitsume is a Japanese sauce that contains eel, octopus and shrimp broth.
What does this all mean? Simply, the animal is taken as a whole and it’s submerged in liquid, it’s set on low heat for long hours until a consistent broth is extracted to be able to mix with the rest of the ingredients. Therefore, the eel sauce should be a mixture of nitsume and the other four basic ingredients already mentioned, to be able to make the reduction.
In conclusion, due to the Americanization of the eel sauce, the list of ingredients has been greatly reduced and each company has its own recipe. It’s most likely that the eel sauces we eat nowadays do not contain eel, but hondashi or any other similar flavor.
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