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:

Udon with Clams and Shiitake Recipe (Vongole Udon)

I loved the rusticity and brilliance of the Fukushima straw-wrapped tofu but after I made it the other day, I thought of this modern Japanese twist on an Italian pasta dish. Vongole udon is something I order at Musha, an izakaya in Santa Monica, California. It’s a boisterous Tokyo-style (read non-traditional) drinking establishment where you can get great bar nibbles and pitchers of beer for about $12.

Musha’s menu is full of crazy concoctions, such as the “Tofu World” menu page, where I discovered the tofu fries that are included in Asian Tofu. There’s a risotto made with medium-grain brown rice and stirred tableside in a giant wheel of Parmesan before it’s served to diners. Their pickled mackerel is torched tableside for a little show.

Along with the fries and fried chicken, we always order the “Vongole udon.” It’s a slightly brothy bowl filled with chewy soft udon, garlic, a hint of butter, fresh mushroom and lots of clams. Instead of parsley, Musha garnishes with cilantro.

Deviled Sriracha Crab Rangoon Recipe

If you don’t want to deep fry crab Rangoon, how about baking them up in little wonton skin cups? The result is a mini deviled snack. I made these up for a cocktail party that we attended over the weekend. They crabby cups disappeared in a flash. People said they were particularly good with gin and tonics.

If you have Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, the deviled crab (cua farci, page 44) is fabulous as a filling too. The filling below is a tweaked rendition of what's used for Sriracha and crab Rangoon wontons. The water chestnut and shrimp contribute texture. Use the classic Trader Vic’s crab Rangoon filling, if you like.

Deviled foods are typically seasoned with hot spices and often presented stuffed into something (think of deviled eggs). When crab is involved, the mixture is baked with a bread crumb topping for a delicate crusty finish. In this case, the Sriracha crab mixture is stuffed into wonton skin cups. You’ll need 1 or 2 mini-cupcake or muffin pans to make these.

Crunchy Shrimp Balls Recipe (aka Chef's Special Balls)

The first time I ordered these deep-fried shrimp balls at a dim sum restaurant, they carried the honoric title of “chef’s special balls.” Yes, I just used the word balls twice in one sentence. My husband and I giggled at the English name as we ordered the crisp little wonders, coated with crunchy ribbons of noodles. Those balls were the size of golf balls and a little awkward to manage with chopsticks. I’m sure you’re smirking or laughing aloud by now. Nevertheless, they offered a nice contrast of textures and shrimp flavor. (If you've had this little wonder, what were they called in English and/or Chinese?)

It was probably the name but I’ve didn’t make chef’s special balls at home until earlier this week. Bee Yinn Low’s new Easy Chinese Recipes cookbook inspired me to do so with a recipe for “crunchy shrimp balls” which gave them a little more gravitas and got me over my giggles. (I contributed a cover blurb to the book so suffice it to say, I’ve been pondering these crunchy morsels since I reviewed the galleys months ago.) Bee is the brains behind the super popular Rasa Malaysia blog, a newish mom, and now a cookbook author.

Spicy Sardine Corn Empanadas Recipe

One of the best food finds on my recent trip to Texas was an amazing little fried empanada made from a corn-based dough. I couldn’t get the chewy-crisp dough out of my mind. I’d eaten enough of them to figure that Mexican corn masa was the dough. Ever since then, I'd been wondering how the gluten-free dough would work with a Southeast Asian dumpling filling. (I'd had a minor catastrophe with gluten-free potstickers a while back so it's something that I obsess about.)

We had an invitation to a friend’s house for dinner last night and I used that as an excuse to for a cross-cultural dumpling experiment. I felt brazen by Rebecca Caro, who recently made the empanada recipe from Asian Dumplings for her Latin food site, From Argentina with Love; she's also doing a giveaway of the book right now so enter if you don't own a copy!

Hey, if I suggest using a Mexican tortilla press as a shortcut for Asian dumpling dough, why not use the press on actual Mexican dough? In my cupboard, I had a small can of sardines in tomato sauce leftover from making a homemade version a while back. I decided to use the sardines for the spicy sardine puff (karipap sardin) filling in Asian Dumplings, page 129.

If you’re unfamiliar with that lovely filling, I assure you that it is NOT fishy whatsoever. There’s lime juice, ketchup, shallot and egg to soften the fishiness. I made the filling the night before so that I focus on the dough and shallow-frying the dumplings right before we had to go to Diane’s house.

Diane didn’t know what I was bringing but she had chilled a bottle of champagne. If you’re into wine and food pairing, bubbles are awesome with fried food! When I unveiled the empanadas to Diane, she promptly popped the cork and poured.

I explained that it was a Oaxacan empanada dough that encased a Southeast Asian canned sardine filling. Diane was born and raised in Fresno, California, but she’d been around enough to have an open mind and palate. She ate one and smiled approvingly.

As we were getting to ready to sit down for dinner, four empanadas remained on the plate. I asked Diane if I should put them away for her, and she surprised me with this reaction: “Don’t bother. I can eat those last four myself!” I suppose that signaled the success of my dumpling experiment.