When a non-Shanghainese is asked what exactly is lajiangyou, a favorite sauce of Shanghai locals, a likely answer they will give is that it is a mix of chili oil and soy sauce.

This is because la stands for the heat of the chili while jiangyou means soy sauce. However, they would be wrong on this point.

Lajiangyou is a sauce that tastes sweet and sour, fresh and hot, and contains some 30 spices and vegetables, among them ginger, garlic, pepper, fennel, Chinese anise, clove, laurel, onion and celery. Shanghainese like dipping deep-fried pork chops, spring rolls and hairtail fish into lajiangyou while enjoying these delicacies.

Panic buying

In fact, so essential is this sauce seen in the city, that when Shanghai-based food writer Shao Wanshu made a joke on his Sina Weibo last year saying that production of lajiangyou was going to stop, it was reported that some people went panic buying, in one case purchasing enough of the sauce to last an average family more than eight years.

Last Sunday, Shao, who is also known as "meixigezhu" (his Sina Weibo account name), joined other online gourmands such as "laobotou" and "shijiafan" at a Shanghai food culture salon in MoCA Shanghai, presided over by Jin Ying from local TV channel DocuChina. On April 15 the channel is launching a new show hosted by Shao, and which will introduce localized Western dishes in Shanghai.

"The predecessor of Shanghai lajiangyou is the British-made Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce, which first went on sale in 1838," said Shao at the salon. "The first bottle of Shanghai lajiangyou was produced by the local brand Maling in 1933 and was based on the original British recipe."

Since 1949, locally produced lajiangyou has dominated the market after Lea & Perrins left China. Today, the Taikang Huangpai (yellow brand) lajiangyou remains the market leader in the city. The sauce makes not only a great match with many Western dishes such as pork chops, but also with Chinese dishes such as dumplings.

"Some locals have even come up with the idea of using smashed soda biscuits to paste pork chops with when they can't find breadcrumbs to hand," said Shao.

Sweet Shanghai

Luosong tang is another Western dish that has been localized. Luosong derives from the Chinese transliteration of the word "Russian," and luosong tang is derived from the Russian Borscht soup.

But compared with this hot and sour Russian soup, Shanghai-styled luosong tang has reduced the spiciness, while pumping up the sweetness by not using beetroot, and by substituting fresh tomatoes with ketchup. The other constituent ingredients such as beef, cabbage, carrot and onion have all been retained. However, during hard times in China's recent past, an even more cut-price version of the soup was created by the Shanghainese in which the beef was replaced with red sausage, and the cream was replaced with milk or water.

"Many people complain that red sausages are not as delicious today as they were in the past, and interestingly the reason is that these sausages now contain less flour than before," said Shao.

Sela is the Chinese name given by Shanghainese for salad. However, this salad is neither the typical European-style cold dish nor the Russian variety.

Salad days

According to Shanghai Sela - a collection of essays written by the Shanghai-based writer Chen Danyan - when the famous Western-style restaurant Red House opened in the city in the 1930s, Shanghai-style salad was a staple on the menu. The dish mixes boiled potatoes and green peas with diced apples and red sausages, all flavored by a salad sauce. And even during times of austerity in the city in the 1970s when access to salad sauce was restricted, most people still managed to concoct their own homemade sauce.

In fact, preparing this DIY sauce is simple: just stir egg yolk with some salad oil until they are completely mixed.

"Almost every Shanghai family is able to prepare fried pork chops, luosong tang and Shanghai salad, and there are some other localized higher-end Western-style dishes in the city," Shao told the Global Times. "Among them is Shanghai-style pizza which uses local qiangbing (pan-fried cake made of leavened dough) to replace Western pancake, and grilled clams that derives from the French dish of grilled snail."

Where to enjoy localized Western dishes

Deda Western Restaurant

德大西菜社

Add: 473 Nanjing Road West 南京西路473号

Tel: 6321-3810

New Richard

新利查西菜馆

Add: 196 Guangyuan Road

广元路196号甲

Tel: 6282-8618

Red House Restaurant

红房子西菜馆

Add: 845 Huaihai Road Middle 淮海中路845号

Tel: 6437-4902