When you're not ready for it, the robust garlic-spiked flavor of a dish with black bean garlic sauce can feel like a punch to the mouth. The first time I cooked with it, a dish of stir-fried eggplant, I kept sneaking spoonfuls from the pan and feeling my eyes pop with every umami-packed bite. If you need something that will wake up your tastebuds in these dog days of winter, just find yourself a jar of this sauce and let it work its magic.
Black bean garlic sauce is made by mashing fermented black beans, garlic, and chilis into a rich, savory paste. A little goes a very long way with this pungent ingredient, so add it a teaspoon at a time and taste as you go. It's crucial for dishes like Ma Po Tofu and many Asian stir-fries, but can also be used more generally as a rub for meat and seafood, to add flavor to steamed or roasted vegetables, or mixed into dipping sauces for potstickers and spring rolls.
You can make your own black bean garlic sauce, but jars of pre-made paste can also be found at any store with a decent selection of Asian ingredients. Lee Kum Kee is a popular and widely available brand. Once opened, jars will keep almost indefinitely in the refrigerator.
Ready to experiment? Here are a few recipes to check out:
• Black Bean Garlic Sauce from Ming Tsai
• Stir-Fried Beef and Broccoli with Black Bean Sauce from Fine Cooking
• Roasted Savoy Cabbage with Black Bean Garlic Sauce from Eating Well
• Chinese Steamed Spareribs with Black Bean Sauce from Steamy Kitchen
• Vietnamese Summer Rolls with Black Bean Garlic Dipping Sauce from The New York Times
How do you use black bean garlic sauce in your cooking?
Related: How to Stir Fry Chicken
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I recall the first time I went to an "authentic" Chinese restaurant about 35 years ago when I was in college.
Some older, more worldly friends took me to a concert and to dinner. One of the dishes was a whole fish cooked in black bean sauce and it was a revelation to me -- the dish itself, the vista of Chinese food it opened for me, and the vista of interesting food in general I've come to meet and love in the intervening years.
LOVE, love, love black bean sauce!
I often use black bean sauce in my soups,stews, braises, and stir-fries. It's really good in black bean chili, too.
I love mixing this with some peanut butter and siracha to go over noodles.
I use this for steaming whole tilapia (or any white meat fish). Place fish on whole scallions in a dish, slather sauce and chopped garlic on top, steam till done. Drain liquid, sprinkle scallion slices and soy sauce, then drizzle oil hot enough to sizzle on top.
Also as a mix-in with other condiments for steamed meat dishes.
Love this, my mother uses it all the time to marinade beef
@Goldspinner - Ooh! I like the idea of adding this to black bean chili!
Cross cut pork ribs marinate with this sauce and steam until cook so yummy and easy
We are also in a black sauce (also from Lee Kum Kee), but it is Black Pepper Sauce. Its called black magic sauce around here^^
Maybe we get another black sauce for the kitchen? I'll have a try:)
You can try making this yourself with the packets of fermented black beans found in Asian supermarkets. Rinse, and dry them on paper towels. Fry over a low heat in sunflower oil with minced garlic, grated ginger, chili flakes, dried tangerine peel (or fresh orange/clementine zest) and a touch of sugar. Store in a glass jar in the fridge, it will keep for weeks. I like to use it as a marinade for stir-fried or steamed chicken pieces. Whilst the store-bought variety is predominantly salty, with that brown 'gloopiness' that coats every ingredient, the homemade sauce has a subtle fragrance and tang, with the occasional burst of saltiness that does not overpower.
the jar of my childhood...
We use it with brussels sprouts and bacon! Dice up bacon, render it and remove, crank the heat, add halved brussels sprouts and brown them all the way (10-15m), add garlic, put the bacon back, and a big dollop of black bean garlic sauce. Soooo good.
Thanks Pearmelon, I'll be trying your recipe for home-made.
An alternative recipe for making your own (which I reverse-engineered by reading the ingredients on the back of a shop-bought jar).
Take fermented black beans (from Asian supermarket). Rinse them if you prefer a less salty sauce. Add to a liquidiser.
Add, in descending order: water; garlic; pickled chillis (I prefer green to red for this); vinegar from the pickled chillis; ginger.
Blitz until it is fairly homogeneous. This takes perhaps 3 minutes, so I make it fresh rather than storing.
I use the sauce in:
beef and green (string) bean stir fry (tip - cut the beef across the grain rather than with the grain, it picks up the sauce a lot better this way, I presume thanks to capillary action);
dan-dan mien - stir fry bacon cubes and any greens (little gem lettuce being especially good), add cooked noodles, sauce, add a raw egg to the hot mix just before serving.
@ ssmith: Thanks!