Viet World Kitchen

Chinese Fermented Black Bean Magic (plus recipes)

While I’ve cooked with Chinese fermented black beans for years, I didn’t realized how versatile they were until I had about 2 pounds of them on hand, leftover from working on the Asian Market Shopper mobile app and the Asian Tofu cookbook.

The little beans are not the same as what you cook up for a pot of cuban black beans! In fact, they are slightly moist and soft, a preserved seasoning ingredient used in many southern Chinese (Cantonese) kitchens. Expect salty, pungent, and winy qualities from the beans.

Wanting to use them up, I started cooking with them, mining my Chinese cookbook collection for recipes and ideas. When I was through, I had enough information about fermented black beans (dou chi in Mandarin, dul see in Cantonese, dau/tau xi in Vietnamese) and a small collection of delectable recipes.

Food editor Russ Parsons of the Los Angeles Times agreed to an article on the beans. We polished it in March and it was published over the weekend under the title, “Chinese fermented black beans a versatile staple.”

Four recipes were included in the story:

Banh Mi Mayonnaise Recipe for Burgers?

Last week on the Viet World Kitchen Facebook page, Jeff Brennan challenged me to create a mayonnaise that contained the flavors of Vietnamese banh mi sandwich. It should be good enough to use for a grilled burger, he wrote. I keep a running list of recipe requests and get to them as my schedule permits. Scott’s seemed doable and quick. Plus, I had some grass-fed hamburger leftover in the fridge. So I tackled the Vietnamese-American burger over the weekend.

Oyster Spring Rolls Recipe

There are innumerable options for stuffing fried spring rolls. I managed to squeeze in several classics in Asian Dumplings but have always wanted to try this one featuring plump oysters and ground pork. It’s a surf-and-turf combination that captures the subtle sweet brininess of the oysters. Oddly enough, the white pepper plays an important role in coaxing out the flavors and lending an earthy depth.

You’d think that the raw oysters are simply added to the filling but they’re actually first blanched to slightly firm them up and remove some of their fishiness. It’s an approach that Chinese cooks prefer. Otherwise, the oysters can overcook or lose their distinctiveness. 

Some cooks blanch the oysters as is, but I tried seasoning them and coating them with cornstarch to seal them up. The technique came from a Fujian cookbook that Chris Tan just sent me from Singapore. It seems to work quite well.

Vegetarian Fish Sauce Dipping Sauce Recipe (Nuoc Cham Chay)

After making the Japanese vegan soy sauce concentrate from Elizabeth Andoh’s new Kansha cookbook, I tried using it to concoct a vegetarian version of the basic Vietnamese fish sauce dipping sauce. Right off the bat, I realized that I could just dilute the vegan soy concentrate to make a vegetarian fish sauce. It was dull tasting, like the bottled veggie nuoc mam that I discussed a while back.

I had to doctor up the soy concentrate to best utilize its umami-ness without letting its soy sauce flavor become too pronounced. Given that, I aimed for a fish sauce-less alternative to nuoc cham, the ubiquitous dipping sauce served with rice paper rolls (goi cuon), bun rice noodle bowls, etc.

What I came up with looked like a dark version of the basic nuoc cham dipping sauce but wasn’t as punchy. That is just fine because Vietnamese vegetarian food has a light flavor profile. I’ve had similar dipping sauces that were much lighter in flavor and color.

To test the vegetarian fish sauce dipping sauce out, I dipped a few raw herb leaves into it and tasted. It was quite serviceable. Then I tried out the sauce on my skeptical husband, Rory.

Japanese Stealth Ingredient: Vegan Soy Sauce Concentrate

One of the questions that renowned Japanese food expert and author Elizabeth Andoh asked me when I visited her in Tokyo last month was this: “Have you ever made my soy sauce concentrate? Come on, tell me the truth.”

Yikes, talk about putting someone on the spot. And there I was, a guest in her home. I truthfully responded that I’d never made it from her earlier book, award-winning Washoku, though I had studied the recipe several times. Elizabeth, the consummate teacher and provocateur, pulled out a couple of small bottles of inky, slightly syrupy sauces from her fridge. One contained dried fish and the other was vegan, she explained.

She had me taste both. Wow. I was sold. The soy concentrates, brewed at home, were savory sweet and delectable. I wanted to lick the spoon but stopped short of acting improperly.

The concentrates were addictively good, thanks to a fair amount of umami in the liquid. Japanese cuisine is much about laying an umami foundation. For the concentrates, glutamate-rich ingredients such as dried kelp, fish, and shiitake mushroom are used. They’re rehydrated and then simmered with soy sauce and other ingredients to create flavor bomb.

I like both versions that Elizabeth had me taste in Tokyo, but the vegan version published her new cookbook, Kansha, is easy to prepare from ingredients available at specialty markets or health food stores. I now keep the seasoned soy concentrate in my fridge to add instant flavor boosts to marinades or cook foods. You can use it as a finishing or dipping sauce.