Fermented black bean sauce

what is it?

A staple of Chinese cooks, black bean sauce is made not from the black turtle beans more familiar to Western cooks, but rather soybeans that are fermented with salt. The sauce is usually flavored with garlic and imparts a characteristically rich, pungent, and salty flavor to the sauces in many Chinese dishes.

how to choose:

Look for fermented black bean sauce in Asian grocery stores or in the Asian food sections of well-stocked supermarkets.

sbreckenridge writes: dikodiver, black bean sauce isn't something home cooks typically make from scratch (well...maybe in China it is, I'm not sure about that.) But you can buy it from most Asian grocery stores. Posted: 4:11 pm on February 9th