Sunday I made the Homemade Kecap manis recipe from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook in preparation for last night’s Nasi Goreng.

The sauce is equal parts dark soy sauce and dark brown sugar (or Kenji suggests palm sugar in the notes) with a bit of molasses and spices.

Making the sauce is straightforward. All of the ingredients going into a small saucepan and is gently simmered until “slightly reduced and thickened.” Since the recipe makes one and a half cups and I only needed a few tablespoons for the Nasi Goreng, I scaled the recipe by a third.

The sauce is salty sweet with a strong burnt caramel note. I'm not sure if this is the molasses coming through or if I overcooked the sauce. I might look for a commercially available version to taste against.

I am cooking my way through J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook. Read more about it.