Chinese Plum Sauce is Great on Duck, Quail, Pheasant Cornish hens and Chicken
Makes about 3 pints or 1 1/2 liters
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour
Ingredients
- 3 pounds plums
- 4 garlic cloves, chopped
- 1 large shallot, chopped
- 2 tablespoons chopped ginger
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons chilli bean paste
- 2 teaspoons Five Spice Powder
- 1/2 cup rice vinegar
- 1 cup sugar
Cooking Method
Don’t peel the plums. Pit the plums. Or pit them later. It’s easier and faster to pit them when they are cooked
Cook the plums in two stages. In the first stage, put just a little water in the bottom of a heavy pot and add all the plums. Turn the heat to medium and, once they are simmering a little, use a potato masher to squash them as they cook. Keep agitating the plums as you simmer them gently — you will probably need to turn the heat down at some point — until most of the flesh comes off the pits. This takes about 20 to 35 minutes.
Move all the plums to a food mill. Pick out as many pits as you can right off the bat. Mill the plums into a coarse puree, removing pits as you go.
Once the cooked plums are free of pits, return them to the pot along with all the other ingredients. Simmer gently for another 30 minutes, until all the flavours are melded, and the garlic, shallot and ginger have softened. Pour everything in to a blender and puree until smooth.
