Rice vinegar

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Rice vinegar is a vinegar made from fermented rice or rice wine in China and Japan. Japanese rice vinegar is very mild and mellow and ranges in colour from colourless to pale yellow. There are two distinct types of Japanese vinegar: one is made from fermented rice and the other is made by adding rice vinegar to sake. Chinese rice vinegars are stronger than Japanese ones, and range in colour from clear to various shades of red and brown. Chinese and especially Japanese vinegars are very mild and sweet compared to more acidic Western vinegars which, for that reason, are not appropriate substitutes for rice vinegars.

White rice vinegar is a colorless liquid, higher in vinegar content and more similar in flavour to Western vinegars, but still less acidic and milder in flavour.

Black rice vinegar is very popular in southern China. Chinkiang vinegar is considered the best of the black rice vinegars. Normally black rice vinegar is made with glutinous or sweet rice, although millet or sorghum may be used instead. It is dark in colour, and has a deep, almost smoky flavour that is somewhat similar to Worcestershire sauce.

Red rice vinegar is darker than white rice vinegar, and paler than black rice vinegar, with a distinctive red colour from Red yeast rice (红曲米), which is cultived with the mold Monascus purpureus. This vinegar has a distinctive flavour of its own due to the red mold.

In Chinese cookbooks, 1/2 tablespoon of Western white vinegar is equivalent in strength to 1 tablespoon Chinkiang vinegar. Many Chinese people who grow up with rice vinegars take time to grow accustomed to the strength of Western vinegars when they start to encounter them.

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