Chinese essentials: soy sauce

I'm very brand-specific and brand-loyal.  It's part of my Chinese, snake (read more about Chinese horoscopes), and Scorpio nature apparently. Childhood-learned Chinese home recipes tie to taste memories so I stick to the brands and flavors that I grew up with.  This is the first in a four-post series about brand-critical essentials for my Chinese pantry.  

Soy sauce is probably the first thing that comes to mind as part of the Chinese pantry -- and it may be Kikkoman or little take out soy sauce packets.  I'm sure there is nothing wrong with Kikkoman, but it's not what I buy.  And those little packets...  Well, they are not soy at all.  You don't want to know what is in them.

I grew up with largely Cantonese recipes so it's light soy sauce that I use the most.  Light soy sauce is lighter and thinner.  And the flavor is distinct.  Distinctly what?  It's hard to define.  Some of my favorite recipes -- steamed fish, in particular -- lean heavily on the flavor of the soy sauce so it's critical.  I also use light soy as my table soy.  No, I don't actually put it on the table.  That would say that I don't know how to season my food properly.  I use it for condiments like dumpling sauce.

When I first started cooking in Atlanta, I scoured all the Chinese grocery stores for the brand I grew up with.  Alas, I couldn't find it.  I bought one bottle of every brand that they had at a Chinese grocery store run by Cantonese speakers, and we tried them all out.  When I found the one that tasted right, I went back to the store and bought a case.  The guy brought out a box of 25.  And then he brought out another.  Yep, I bought 50 bottles.  Wow.

I still look for the brand I grew up with, but generally I buy soy sauce in the larger plastic container and refill the glass bottle.  It has a spout so it doesn't pour dangerously quickly.  There is nothing worse than pouring more soy sauce than you intended.  You may not find this brand specifically or use enough to buy a plastic container, but look for the silver label saying "light soy sauce".
* Note, I pull off the plastic spout with the blunt edge of a knife when refilling the glass bottle.

Pictured to the right of the light soy bottle is a dark soy.  It's mushroom soy sauce, and it's actually made by adding a mushroom broth, hence the name.  It's darker, thicker, and saltier.  I reach for the dark soy when making my dad's delicious pepper sauce or most Sichuan recipes.