Oyster sauce

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Oyster sauce
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	蠔油
Simplified Chinese	蚝油
Literal meaning	oyster oil/liquid
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin háo yóu Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization hòuh yàuh Jyutping hou4 jau4
Alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	蚵油
Transcriptions Southern Min Hokkien POJ ô-iû
Vietnamese name
Vietnamese alphabet	dầu hào dầu hàu
Hán-Nôm	油蠔
Thai name
Thai	ซอสหอยนางรม
RTGS	sot-hoi-nang-rom
Malay name
Malay	sos tiram
Indonesian name
Indonesian	saus tiram
Khmer name
Khmer	ទឹកប្រេងខ្យង (tɨk preeng khyɑɑng)

Oyster sauce describes a number of sauces made by cooking oysters. The most common in modern use is a viscous dark brown condiment made from oyster extracts,^[1][2][3] sugar, salt and water, thickened with corn starch (though original oyster sauce reduced the unrefined sugar through heating, resulting in a naturally thick sauce due to caramelization, not the addition of corn starch).

Today, some commercial versions are darkened with caramel, though high-quality oyster sauce is naturally dark.^[4] It is commonly used in Chinese, Thai, Indonesian, Malay, Vietnamese, and Khmer cuisine.