Share
Asian cuisines, particularly Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese, heavily rely on rice vinegar and wine as basic ingredients. A few more nations that include rice wine in their cuisine are Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, India, and the Philippines, to mention a few. Each has unique variants that differ according to the kind of rice and preparation method. However, all of this may quickly become confused. What distinguishes rice vinegar from rice wine? Prior to proceeding, it is important to keep in mind that vinegar is derived from wine, and the fermentation process is what creates both.
What Is Rice Wine?
The most well-known beverage consumed by Japanese people is rice wine, or sake, typically in bars. However, it may also be used to cook, just like wine is in the West. Ryourishu is the name for the rice-cooking wine in Japan. As you may know, shu refers to alcohol, liquor, or sake, and ryouri implies cooking. Seishu is the unique term for sake intended for drinking (but it can also be utilised in some cooking applications).
What Is Rice Vinegar?
It should be apparent that rice is used to make rice wine. More precisely, though, it's often brewed from fermented rice (mostly glutinous rice, or mochigome; though there are other brewers that use other types of rice).
The first step in the process of manufacturing rice wine vinegar is adding acetobacters, which are distinct organisms, to alcohol. To manufacture vinegar, they ferment the carbohydrates in rice to produce alcohol, which is subsequently converted to acetic acid. Compared to white distilled vinegar, it tastes milder, less acidic, and unmistakably sweeter.
Rice Wine Vs. Rice Vinegar
What's probably the simplest way to remember the distinction is that rice vinegar is too acidic to drink directly, whereas rice wine is something you can drink due to its sweetness. In recipes where you wish to add sweetness and flavour depth, use rice wine. When you want to add some acidity and a hint of sweetness to anything, such as marinades and salad dressings, use rice vinegar.
Contrary to rice wine vinegar, rice wine is an alcohol obtained by fermenting the carbohydrates and sugars in rice until alcohol is produced. It is customary to heat rice wine before using it in cooking in order to remove the alcohol. Rice wine is not the ideal replacement for rice wine vinegar, just as you wouldn't use red or white wine in a recipe that called for either type of vinegar because of its high alcohol level. Chinese Shaoxing wine, Japanese mirin, and Japanese sake are examples of common rice wines.
Rice Vinegar Vs. Mirin
While sake is the most popular drinking wine, rice vinegar is frequently mistaken for another prominent ingredient from Japan called mirin, which is the most common cooking wine created from rice.
As an added component to teriyaki sauce, mirin is a reasonably sweet wine with a modest alcohol percentage (14%).
