Black bean paste
Not to be confused with regular black beans, the dark brown, moist Black bean paste is made from fermented black soy beans (douchi) preserved and aged in salt. The beans are also known as Chinese black beans or salted black beans. With a strong, intense, salty flavor, you can create flavor in an instant by adding a spoon of black bean paste to almost any dish.
Chinese black beans predates soy sauce and is one of the oldest condiments used in Chinese cuisine. The recorded history of black bean paste goes as far back as the Ming Dynasty.
Fermented black beans are ususally soaked in water for half an hour before being added to stri-frys. They are also available in dried form.
However, black bean paste is more widely available in supermarkets. You can add black bean paste to your stir-frys right at the start. To make these pastes, the fermented beans are crushed and mixed in with condiments such as garlic, chilies and fish to create various flavors. A popular flavor is black bean garlic paste which is commonly available in most stores.
Since Black bean paste is quite salty, there is no need to add salt when using the paste. Use the paste sparingly to give your dish the right amount of flavor. In addition to stir-frys. black bean paste can also be used for steaming and braising.
Source: www.wikipedia.org
Image by Ping Yee (Flickr) available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license
Not to be confused with regular black beans, the dark brown, moist Black bean paste is made from fermented black soy beans (douchi) preserved and aged in salt. The beans are also known as Chinese black beans or salted black beans. With a strong, intense, salty flavor, you can create flavor in an instant by adding a spoon of black bean paste to almost any dish.
Chinese black beans predates soy sauce and is one of the oldest condiments used in Chinese cuisine. The recorded history of black bean paste goes as far back as the Ming Dynasty.
Fermented black beans are ususally soaked in water ..
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