This versatile Chinese sauce adds intense umami to a dish. You can easily buy black bean sauce at a grocery store, but the homemade version is much more fragrant, and I highly recommend it. Chinese fermented black beans (dou chi) are made from soybeans fermented in salt (the black color comes from fermentation). They are a staple in a huge array of Chinese dishes and are prominently used in Cantonese cooking, adding a complexity of flavor that is even deeper than soy sauce. This sauce can be used in fried rice, noodle dishes, and stir-fries.
This recipe was excerpted from 'Chinese Homestyle' by Maggie Zhu. Buy the full book on Amazon.
Unless you use very potent chile peppers (such as Thai peppers), the sauce won’t be spicy. I only use dried Chinese chile peppers to infuse more aroma into the sauce; dried Korean and Mexican chiles work too. If you do want a spicy sauce, consider blending ½ cup (120 ml) of chili oil into the sauce at the end of cooking or adding 1 teaspoon of cayenne powder with the garlic and ginger in step 5.
