What makes good XO sauce

XO sauce is a flavor-bomb condiment rich with dried seafood and cured ham. You can spoon it over any number of dishes, but it's also a fantastic ingredient to cook with.

XO sauce is quite popular in southern China, probably originated in Guangdong province, and it has growingly gained more fame after celebrity chefs at hotels like The Peninsula (半島酒店) and Mandarin Oriental (文華東方) in Hong Kong put it on the world stage and branded it as a “secret sauce” for Chinese cuisine. I remember my friends in the US or Singapore sometimes like to ask me to buy them a bottle of XO sauce from MO’s gift shop before I board my flight.

It has turned out that our Meta (Facebook) in-house chef Yew Eng Tong is also a master of XO sauce. I got a small bottle from him ahead of the new year holiday and then I just can’t stop having it for almost everything I cook and eat, noodles, wonton, or my favorite Shanghai rice cake in soup (上海湯年糕).

In Hong Kong, I'm sure everyone has his/her favorite XO sauce and my flavor prefers relatively light and wet sauce and it must taste fresh. The key to success for XO sauce is all about the ingredients such as dried scallop, chilli peppers, Chinese Jinhua ham, dried shrimp, garlic, canola oil and so on. Now you can tell it’s definitely not cheap to make some good XO sauce.

The name XO sauce comes from fine XO (extra-old) cognac, which is a popular Western liquor in Hong Kong, and considered by many to be a chic product in the old and good times. In fact, the name “XO sauce” is a misnomer since the condiment contains no cognac, and it is not really a sauce in the traditional, smooth sense, but more chunky, like a relish.

Btw, “Upstairs Canteen” is the name of cafeteria for Meta employees in the Hong Kong office, aka our very own food paradise.