For dinner tonight I made this recipe from Fuschia Dunlop’s excellent Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: Recipes from Hunan Province. It’s similar to a dish I make fairly regularly, but with the addition of pork, Shaoxing wine, stock, and sesame oil. The dish is slightly spicy-hot (and if you like things fiery, it can be made even hotter by adding chili paste or more chilies) and redolent with the unmistakable flavor of fermented black beans, which I absolutely love.
Perhaps you’ve had “home-style bean curd” in a Chinese restaurant, but as far as I’ve seen, most Chinese restaurants in America don’t make it anything like this. The original recipe was from a famous Hunanese chef, Peng Chang-Kuei, and, as Dunlop writes, “its Hunanese roots are plain to see”, with salty, bold, and rich flavors, and its the use of hot chilies (but not as mouth-tingling as Sichuan cuisine). I think it’s a terrific treatment of bean curd: assertive and complex, not to mention completely unlike the flaccid and gluey substance that passes for home-style bean curd in a typical Chinese take-out joint.
As this version does contain pork, it is obviously not vegetarian. However, vegetarians can make it work for them by simply leaving out the pork and replacing it with a little more bean curd and a small splash of Shaoxing wine. For those not familiar with some of the ingredients, the Shaoxing wine and fermented black beans can be found at any Asian grocer. There aren’t really any substitutions, though, so it won’t do at all to try!
Finally, a few words about deep frying the bean curd. I don’t have a wok or deep fryer at home, so I usually fry my bean curd in a large sauté pan with high sides. I find this works very well, and might also add that it’s a bit lower in fat than deep-frying, which frankly gives me a bit of the heebie-jeebies. Assuming you don’t have a complex about deep-frying stuff, by all means go for it - the bean curd will probably stay crisper when added to the sauce. Apart from frying the bean curd in a pan, the only other changes I made were to use cornstarch rather than potato flour (it’s easier to find and has basically the same effect), and the addition of some sliced red pepper at the same time as the black beans to provide a little more color and nutrition. For a full meal, I like to serve it with rice and sautéed Asian greens.
Peng’s Home-Style Bean Curd
Adapted from Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: Recipes from Hunan Province
3oz boneless lean pork, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon Shaoxing wine
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 block firm bean curd, rinsed and patted dry (about 1 1/4 lbs)
3 scallions, green parts only, chopped
2 fresh red chilies, chopped (remove the seeds for less heat)
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
3 tablespoons fermented black beans, rinsed
1 cup vegetable stock
1//4 teaspoon dark soy sauce
1 teaspoon potato flour or cornstarch, dissolved in 1 tablespoon water
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
peanut oil for frying
Place pork slices in a bowl with the Shaoxing wine and salt, toss to coat.
Cut bean curd into cubes or oblong slices, about 1/2 inch thick.
To deep fry bean curd:
Heat 1 cup peanut oil over a high flame until it reaches 350-400ºF. Add bean curd in 3 or 4 batches and fry until tinged with gold; drain and set aside on a plate covered with a few paper towel to absorb excess oil.
To fry bean curd in a sauté pan:
Heat 1/4 to 1/3 cup peanut oil on highest flame in a sauté pan with 2 inch high sides. Add bean curd in 1 or 2 batches and fry, turning pieces over as they become golden. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside on a plate covered with a few paper towel to absorb excess oil.
In a wok or sauté pan, heat 3 tablespoons oil over a high flame. Add garlic and chilies and stir for a few seconds until fragrant. Add the sliced pork, and when it becomes pale, toss in the black beans, stirring all the while. When hot, pour in the stock, add the bean curd and soy sauce, and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat and simmer for several minutes so the bean curd will become flavored with the sauce. Add the potato flour or cornstarch and stir, then add the chopped scallions. Turn off the heat, stir in the sesame oil, and serve.
