Benihana Ginger Sauce

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The name misleads people into loading it with ginger, and the result is a sauce with an aggressive, burning heat that nobody wants on a piece of steak.

Onion is the bulk of it. A whole small onion to about a thumb-sized piece of ginger. The onion provides the body, the pale colour and the slight sweetness; the ginger is the top note.

Get that the wrong way round and it is not a mild version of the same thing — it is a different, much harsher sauce.

This one does want a blender

Unusually for the sauces on this site, this is a blended sauce and should be. Raw onion has to be broken down completely or you get a chunky relish, and the texture is meant to be a thin, slightly cloudy pourable liquid.

Blend it for a good thirty seconds. It should look homogeneous with no visible pieces.

Ice water in the mixture

A tablespoon or two of ice water does two things.

It thins the sauce to the right consistency without diluting the seasoning as much as more soy or vinegar would.

More usefully, it keeps the blending temperature down. Blades warm what they are spinning, and warm raw onion develops a sulphurous, cooked-cabbage note fast. Cold onion stays clean and sharp.

Peel the ginger with a spoon

Ginger skin is thin and irregular, and a peeler takes a lot of the flesh with it. The edge of a teaspoon scrapes the skin off and follows the bumps.

It sounds like a kitchen-blog cliché. It is genuinely better, and with a knobbly piece of root it saves a noticeable amount.

What you need

• 1 small onion, roughly chopped
• 3 cm piece fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
• 120 ml soy sauce
• 60 ml rice vinegar
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp ice water
• 1 tbsp granulated sugar
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 tsp toasted sesame oil

Method

1. Peel the ginger with the edge of a spoon and chop it roughly.
2. Everything into a blender.
3. Blend 30 seconds, until completely smooth and pale.
4. Taste. Add sugar if the vinegar is dominating, more ginger if it is too mild — a small amount at a time.
5. Chill before serving.

It is better on day two

Raw onion and raw garlic are both harsh immediately after blending. Overnight in the fridge, the acid in the vinegar and lemon takes the edge off both, and the ginger spreads through instead of sitting on top.

Made and served straight away it tastes raw and aggressive. Made the day before, it tastes like the restaurant version.

Do not skip the sesame oil, and do not add more

One teaspoon. Toasted sesame oil is extremely strong and it is there as a background note, not a flavour. Two teaspoons and the sauce tastes of sesame rather than of ginger and onion.

Storing

A week in the fridge in a sealed jar. It separates — shake it before using.

The onion flavour strengthens over the first three days and then starts to fade.

It does not freeze well; the texture goes watery and grainy.