Word
ponzu
/ˈpɑnzu/
Definition
n. a thin, dark sauce used in Japanese cooking that tastes both salty and sour. It is made from citrus juice and soy sauce, and you often use it for dipping meat or fish.
n. a citrus-based sauce commonly used in Japanese cuisine as a condiment or marinade. Typically composed of soy sauce, mirin, and the juice of citrus fruits such as yuzu or sudachi.
Examples
“I like to dip my sushi in a little bit of ponzu.”
“The chef served the grilled yellowtail with a side of ponzu to balance the richness of the fish.”
“While traditional recipes involve simmering mirin and rice vinegar with katsuobushi and seaweed, modern variations of ponzu often focus on the bright acidity of fresh citrus paired with high-quality soy sauce.”
Examples
simple
“I like to dip my sushi in a little bit of ponzu.”
contextual
“The chef served the grilled yellowtail with a side of ponzu to balance the richness of the fish.”
complex
“While traditional recipes involve simmering mirin and rice vinegar with katsuobushi and seaweed, modern variations of ponzu often focus on the bright acidity of fresh citrus paired with high-quality soy sauce.”
Real-World Examples
“Simply put, ponzu sauce is a Japanese citrus vinaigrette—a flavorful condiment and a zesty marinade.” “Frankly, ponzu—the Japanese sauce made from citrus, seaweed, bonito flakes, mirin, and vinegar—is pretty great all on its own.” “An all-purpose sauce from Japan, ponzu is the rough equivalent of vinaigrette.” “PONZU, an all-purpose sauce from Japan, is the rough equivalent of vinaigrette.” Etymology
From Japanese ポン酢 (ponzu), itself borrowed from Dutch pons — an obsolete term for the beverage, since displaced in that language by the English punch. The Dutch had taken the word from English, which had lifted it from Sanskrit पञ्च (páñca, "five"), referring to the five ingredients of the original drink.
The Sanskrit root has proved remarkably productive. It yields a small constellation of English doublets: cinque, fin, finnuf, five, pimp (the five-spot in cards), punch (the beverage), and sengi — along with, more distantly, Pompeii. The citrus-and-soy sauce that Japanese cuisine calls ponzu has thus travelled from Sanskrit numerals to Dutch colonial trade to the English-speaking table, acquiring a 酢 (su, "vinegar") suffix somewhere along the way.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Domain
Scan code
englishreference.com/q/ponzu