Garlic and Black Bean Sauce 蒜头豆豉汁

Any time you have a dish with this sauce, you can guarantee it’s Cantonese. There are so many versions of this sauce that it’s hard to pin down an exact recipe for it and it really comes down to personal preference. For Chinese American restaurants, there’s also the ubiquitous brown sauce that comes with a lot of dishes. That brown sauce is really based off of this sauce, but you take out the garlic and black beans, and dial down all the flavors to suit the American palate. With the experience both my parents have in Chinese restaurants, they’ve told me that brown sauce is basically that.

Like everything I’ve learned from my parents there were no measurements. I’ve had this enough growing up that by the time I was in college, I could remake this on my own from watching my parents make this so much and memorizing the taste and adjusting to get close.

One thing to know about this sauce is that while it can complement a wide range of dishes, it shouldn’t be treated as static and formulaic. Like any Cantonese cuisine, the essence of ingredients should be the main taste of a dish and this sauce should complement it. So depending what dish you are making, like 湿炒牛河 wet beef chow fun, made that saltier than I normally would for many other dishes to also give flavor with the thick and chewy noodles in that. Other times, if I were to be making a dish with seafood or tofu, I might be inclined to make it sweeter.

I’ve wrote down two versions of this sauce to be on two ends of the spectrum of salty and sweet (both for savory dishes). The soy sauce one on the salty end of the spectrum and the oyster sauce being on the sweet end of the spectrum. Feel free to adjust the amounts to find something that you like. I sometimes makes this with a combination of a little bit of both. It’s also a pretty forgiving sauce, so it’s pretty hard to mess up.

RECIPE

1 large clove of garlic
1/2 tbsp 豆豉 dau si (fermented black beans)
2 green onions
Neutral oil
1/2 c water
1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp Knorr chicken bouillon (for a vegetarian version, just add salt in place of this)
* 1 tsp soy sauce OR 1/2 tbsp oyster sauce
Salt, to taste
Ground white pepper, to taste
1/2 tbsp cornstarch (plus 1 tbsp water)

In a bowl, soak the 豆豉 dau si (fermented black beans) in some water for about a minute or two. This helps wash out some of the excess salt, but make them more readily release their flavor into the sauce. Drain and gently squeeze with your hand to remove the extra water. Place on a chopping board and roughly chop. Place them back in the bowl and set aside.

Peel and mince the garlic glove and place them in the bowl with the 豆豉 dau si (fermented black beans). Set aside.

Wash and thinly slice green onions and set aside.

Measure out 1/2 c water in a separate bowl and set aside.

In a wok or pot, heat over medium-high until it’s hot. When the wok or pot is ready, add some neutral oil to coat the bottom and add the 豆豉 dau si (fermented black beans) and garlic. Stir fry for about 20-30 seconds or until fragrant. Don’t let this burn.

Add the water (reserve the bowl) and season with sugar, chicken bouillon (or salt for a vegetarian version), and soy sauce OR oyster sauce. Stir to combine and bring this to a boil.

Meanwhile, in the bowl you had measured the water with, add the cornstarch and 1 tbsp of water and mix to combine.

When the sauce has come to a boil, season with salt and ground white pepper. Carefully taste it so you don’t burn yourself and adjust the seasoning as needed.

When it tastes good, slowly add the cornstarch slurry to the boiling sauce while mixing the sauce It will thicken quickly as it boils. Don’t add all the slurry at once as you probably won’t need all of this. Watch how the sauce thickens as you add the slurry and mix it until you reach the desired texture.

Add the sliced green onions and mix for a few seconds.

The sauce is ready to be topped on your dish.