Rayu Chili Oil (la-yu) – Japanese, 120 g

Rayu, or La-Yu, Nakamura-yu 120 g – Japanese chili sauce

Japanese well-balanced chili oil with garlic. We at Valfrids think it’s a really fun and fantastic spice!

We use rayu for many different things, for Japanese and Asian food, the uses are many. It’s definitely more fun than the rather boring chili sauces you find at Ica. Here we have a small-scale produced sauce from Japan, we like that. It is widely used in Japan on meat, fish, chicken and tofu. Use directly on fried chicken, for example, after frying, it is more common than mixing it together with other things that are otherwise common with, for example, Southeast Asian chili. It’s not that strong, so it’s perfectly ok to use for Swedes who don’t eat spicy food. As it contains roasted sesame oil and quite a lot of garlic, it also brings a touch of Chinese cuisine. One of our favorites is Reko chicken thighs fried (light marinade of salt and sake, or just salt) and then served with Nakamura-yu, simple and delicious.

The sauce is made on a small scale and comes from Sakana Dokoro YAOYOROZU (肴処 やおよろず) – a small restaurant in Sendai, discreetly located on a cross street in Ichibancho. In 2011, the owner’s father Nakamura San developed this sauce, hoping to give his son’s restaurant a flavorful boost – and “NAKAMURA-YU” was born.

The main ingredient is garlic, specifically the Fukuchi White Rokuhen variety from Aomori – one of Japan’s most premium garlic varieties, known for its deep flavor. The result is a tare (a kind of thicker Japanese sauce) with a nice balance of soy, mirin (rice vinegar), sesame oil and rich garlic – sweet, salty, slightly spicy. No chemicals, no MSG of course.

Use for:
Yakitori, yakiniku, tofu, fish, grilled vegetables, stir-fry, rice dishes, dipping sauces, noodles, salad dressings, etc. Or experiment with Scandinavian cuisine.

Ingredients: Garlic, soy sauce (salt, soybeans, wheat, alcohol), sesame oil, vegetable oil (canola oil), scallions, white sesame seeds, sugar, salt, Chinese chili paste (red chili, broad beans, salt, alcohol, antioxidant (vitamin C)), red chili.

(Rayu is pronounced with a long “raa” and the r becomes like a mixture of l and r, as well as not a “rolling r”)