雜貨舖THE GROCER
Chilli bean sauce
豆瓣醬
The Sichuan chilli paste: broad beans and chillies fermented together, red-brown, salty, hot and bean-deep. A Hong Kong kitchen uses it by the teaspoon, in the eggplant claypot, in mapo tofu, and in some families' clams. Lee Kum Kee Chili Bean Sauce is the household jar; Pixian bean paste is the original, coarser and saltier. It is not the same thing as the mild fermented soybean paste.
Cautions: read first
- Contains soy and wheat, mandatory-declaration allergens in Australia; salty, so go easy on salt once it is in.
Preparation
Fry it in oil first, before the other ingredients go in.
Origin
Pixian, Sichuan. Every Asian grocer carries bottled chilli bean sauce (Lee Kum Kee, for example) and Pixian bean paste, and so does the Asian aisle of supermarkets in Chinese suburbs.
Availability in Australia
Easy to find
