Okay, this probably doesn't surprise some of you at all. You know it and love it. In fact, in some ways, I already knew it and loved it, but I didn't know it. What is "it"? Bean paste. Yep. Go to your local Asian food market, grab a jar or tub, and just start playing with it - well, in a cooking sort of way.....
If you've had Chinese food (and I certainly have), you've probably had bean paste in some form or fashion. I can vouch that I've eaten bean paste many, many times over the years, without knowing it was an ingredient in the food. When the Ramen throwdown came along, there was a dish at my favorite local Chinese restaurant that I kind of wanted to duplicate. But I didn't want to call the restaurant and ask how they made it, as I wanted to experiment a bit. I looked at many recipes for the dish on the web, and found no two that were the same - apparently there are a million and one ways to make this dish. But the one ingredient that was common to all of them was bean paste. Okay, I headed to the little local Asian grocer and then to the big local Asian grocer, and amongst other things picked up a hefty jar of bean paste. Hey, it was the smallest jar either of them had, but it was HUGE for someone using it for the first time!
My son was helping me, as that was shortly after I broke my ankle. We both tried individually all the new ingredients that we had never bought before. Admittedly, we were both quizzical about the bean paste - not my favorite thing to eat on its own, by any means! But we went ahead and used it. And since then, we have kept using it. Every time we do, it's an experiment of sorts - how easy is it to use something you don't particularly care for by itself as a cooking ingredient? But, we keep trying, and have put it in all sorts of stuff now. Barbecue? Go for it. My son makes something we endearingly call "egg stuff" - scrambled eggs, veggies, and whatever hits his fancy at the time, as far as seasonings go. Yep, bean paste has become a common addition to this dish. We are even using it in things we don't really consider Asian, and finding it's a good addition. Tonight he went in an Asian direction with chicken - all I know for sure that he put in it was bean paste, thai red curry and a hot pepper paste we also picked up at the Asian grocer's - and slapped it on the grill. Quite nice.
So all this long-winded post is to say that if you haven't ever tried bean paste as an ingredient in your cooking, don't be shy - it's been really fun to see what a difference it makes in so many dishes.
If you've had Chinese food (and I certainly have), you've probably had bean paste in some form or fashion. I can vouch that I've eaten bean paste many, many times over the years, without knowing it was an ingredient in the food. When the Ramen throwdown came along, there was a dish at my favorite local Chinese restaurant that I kind of wanted to duplicate. But I didn't want to call the restaurant and ask how they made it, as I wanted to experiment a bit. I looked at many recipes for the dish on the web, and found no two that were the same - apparently there are a million and one ways to make this dish. But the one ingredient that was common to all of them was bean paste. Okay, I headed to the little local Asian grocer and then to the big local Asian grocer, and amongst other things picked up a hefty jar of bean paste. Hey, it was the smallest jar either of them had, but it was HUGE for someone using it for the first time!
My son was helping me, as that was shortly after I broke my ankle. We both tried individually all the new ingredients that we had never bought before. Admittedly, we were both quizzical about the bean paste - not my favorite thing to eat on its own, by any means! But we went ahead and used it. And since then, we have kept using it. Every time we do, it's an experiment of sorts - how easy is it to use something you don't particularly care for by itself as a cooking ingredient? But, we keep trying, and have put it in all sorts of stuff now. Barbecue? Go for it. My son makes something we endearingly call "egg stuff" - scrambled eggs, veggies, and whatever hits his fancy at the time, as far as seasonings go. Yep, bean paste has become a common addition to this dish. We are even using it in things we don't really consider Asian, and finding it's a good addition. Tonight he went in an Asian direction with chicken - all I know for sure that he put in it was bean paste, thai red curry and a hot pepper paste we also picked up at the Asian grocer's - and slapped it on the grill. Quite nice.
So all this long-winded post is to say that if you haven't ever tried bean paste as an ingredient in your cooking, don't be shy - it's been really fun to see what a difference it makes in so many dishes.
