**Cantonese Black Bean Garlic Beef: A Quick and Delicious Recipe**

So, to fry that beef. Now, if you do feel like passing this guy through oil – definitely feel free, but today we are just gonna be doing a brief oily pre-fry instead. So, just toss about a third of a cup of oil to a pot and heat that up over a high flame. Once it's hot enough that bubbles're rapidly forming around a pair of chopsticks, about 180 centigrade, go in with the marinated beef. Give it a brief stir fry over a high flame for about forty five seconds til basically cooked, then dip it all out, oil and all, over a strainer filled with all your aromatic's, sans the scallion greens.

Then, same wok. Toss in another two tablespoons of oil and over a medium low flame go in with two and a half tablespoons of your garlic black bean sauce. Give that a fry until the oil separates, about one to two minutes, then up the flame to high. Swirl in a tablespoon of liaojiu a.k.a. Shaoxing wine over your spatula and around the sides of the wok, quick stir, then toss in the beef and the aromatics. Fry that all together for about thirty seconds or so, then toss in an optional half teaspoon of dark soy sauce for color, quick mix, a slurry of a teaspoon of cornstarch mixed with an equal amount of water, another quick mix, then go in with your scallion greens, and after a final toss… out. Cantonese black bean garlic beef, done.

**Notes and Variations**

Now again, this was just one idea, and definitely do check out the pinned note in the comments for a few more. Either way, what we just whipped up in the first part of the video should be enough for about five dishes, and you can definitely go bigger if you want. It’ll keep about a week or so in the fridge, but for long term storage we’d recommend separating out individual two and a half tablespoon portions and freezing them.

If you are looking to get creative and potentially use this sauce as a dip or spread in Western cooking – and honestly it is pretty awesome in that context too – quick word that you will need to cook your sauce first… after all, that whole head of garlic probably wouldn’t be all that pleasant totally raw. So, here’s what I would do. Medium flame, about a tablespoon of oil, go in with the amount you want pre-cooked… here I’m frying up about half of the sauce that we just made. Just fry that for about a minute or two, again til the oil’s separated, swirl in a tablespoon of liaojiu a.k.a. Shaoxing wine, and after a quick mix, toss in a quarter cup of water. Then just swap your flame to high, and let all that reduce away. After about five to ten minutes of bubbling, the water should be basically gone and you should be looking at something a bit like this. And then now at this point, it’ll be totally ready to top on your cheeseburger, or mix into your compound butter, or whatever you want to do.

**Sponsorship Opportunity**

I guess we completely lost our sponsorship opportunity for Lee Kum Kee (“meow”)… while not the biggest fans of this product, but Lee Kum Kee does make really good Hoisin and Char Siu sauce (“meow”), and their oyster sauce is also pretty decent. So right! Check out the recipe in the description box (“meow…”), a big thank you for everyone that’s supporting us on Patreon… and of course, subscribe for more Chinese cooking videos.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enBlack bean garlic is a classic sauce in Cantonese cooking – it’s awesome with seafood,  and it’s particularly awesome with beef. But if you do love this bottled stuff, and really,  I don’t blame you… it’s only because you haven’t tried to make it yourself yet – because once you  do, I promise that there’s no going back to the LKK. You can make a big batch and use it as a  base for stir fries, obviously – the intended use case – but especially with this homemade stuff  it’s absolutely something that you can totally go nuts and get creative with.Now, the reason why homemade is so much better than the bottle is two fold.  First, as a base we’ll be using some actual whole douchi, that is, those Chinese fermented black  soybeans. For whatever reason the bottled stuff just doesn’t have that same chocolatey depth  that the beans themselves have, but I promise you that these guys are pretty much just as available  worldwide as that Lee Kum Kee is. You might find them labelled Yangjiang Preserved Beans or  Yangjiang Preserved Beans with Ginger – either variant’s totally ok, and is a fantastic  ingredient to have around in and of itself.Second reason, the garlic. You see,  an advantage that we have when cooking at home is that we can use fresh garlic straight up,  something that can be a bit of a challenge for a shelf stable bottle. So we’ll be making a bigger  batch today and using one whole head’s worth, about 70 grams, smashed to remove the peels.  Now, for this sauce today you do have some flexibility for how you want to break it all down…  mincing is quite common, and feel free to use a food processor if that’s more your thing,  but we are going to be pounding in a mortar. So, to start, just toss in that garlic along  with a teaspoon of salt, also together with… some… chenpi… Chinese aged tangerine peel.So… yeah, I guess this might be advantage number three to the bottle,  because these guys are a fantastic addition that you sometimes see in these black bean sauces, and  it’s something we quite like. To prep them, first soak about three grams of chenpi in cool water  for about an hour or so til soft, then thoroughly scrape off that bitter white pith. Quick word that  this so-called ‘tangerine peel’ is another thing that should be Chinese supermarket available, and  it’s also around online, but if you’re having some sourcing troubles feel free to swap for a similar  amount of orange zest or just skip it. Either way, just mince that up and toss it in with the garlic. Then just… pound pound pound, and go in with two tablespoons worth of your fermented black  soybeans, two shallots, three tablespoons of sugar, and a teaspoon of chicken bouillon  powder or alternatively a bit of MSG. Then, once that’s all good and pasty, something a bit like  this, mix in two tablespoons of oyster sauce, one tablespoon of soy sauce…. and just like that,  you’ve got yourself a nice homemade garlic blackbean sauce. So, let’s show you how to use it.Now. One of the most classic stir fries using this sauce is probably this one with beef,  which is one of douchi’s best friends. To make it, we’ll be using 200 grams of beef, thinly  sliced into 2 millimeter sheets against the grain, and giving that a quick marinade. To tenderize,  we’ll first toss in a quarter teaspoon of kansui, Chinese lye water, but do feel free to swap that  for baking soda if you need. Then just toss in a half teaspoon salt, a teaspoon of sugar, one  teaspoon cornstarch, one teaspoon liaojiu a.k.a. Shaoxing wine, a half teaspoon of soy sauce,  a half teaspoon of dark soy sauce for color, a quarter teaspoon black pepper, one teaspoon oyster  sauce, and two tablespoons of water. Just do a real bang up job really mixing in that marinade,  til the beef absorbs all the water, coat with about a teaspoon of oil… and set that aside.Next up, aromatics. Half inch of ginger, cut into slices, three scallions, white and green parts  separated, both cut into about two inch sections, quarter of an onion cut into one inch chunks,  a half a green mild chili cut into diamonds, a half a red mild chili also cut into diamonds,  and feel free to use the bell pepper equivalents – or just one color or the other – if need be.So, to fry that beef. Now, if you do feel like passing this guy through oil  definitely feel free, but today we are just gunna be doing a brief oily pre-fry instead. So,  just toss about a third of a cup of oil to a pot and heat that up over a high flame.  Once it’s hot enough that bubbles’re rapidly forming around a pair of chopsticks,  about 180 centigrade, go in with the marinated beef. Give it a brief stir fry over a high flame  for about forty five seconds til basically cooked, then dip it all out, oil and all,  over a strainer filled with all your aromatics, sans the scallion greens.Then. Same wok. Toss in another two tablespoons of oil and over a medium low flame go in with two  and a half tablespoons of your garlic black bean sauce. Give that a fry until the oil separates,  about one to two minutes, then up the flame to high. Swirl in a tablespoon of liaojiu  a.k.a. Shaoxing wine over your spatula and around the sides of the wok, quick stir,  then toss in the beef and the aromatics. Fry that all together for about thirty seconds or so,  then toss in an optional half teaspoon of dark soy sauce for color, quick mix,  a slurry of a teaspoon of cornstarch mixed with an equal amount of water, another quick mix, then  go in with your scallion greens, and after a final toss… out. Cantonese black bean garlic beef, done.Now again, this was just one idea, and definitely do check out the pinned note  in the comments for a few more. Either way, what we just whipped up in the first part  of the video should be enough for about five dishes, and you can definitely go bigger if  you want. It’ll keep about a week or so in the fridge, but for long term storage we’d  recommend separating out individual two and a half tablespoon portions and freezing them.Either way, if you are looking to get creative and potentially use this sauce  as a dip or spread in Western cooking – and honestly it is pretty awesome  in that context too – quick word that you will need to cook your sauce first…  after all, that whole head of garlic probably wouldn’t be all that pleasant totally raw.So, here’s what I would do. Medium flame, about a tablespoon of oil, go in with the  amount you want pre-cooked… here I’m frying up about half of the sauce that we just made.  Just fry that for about a minute or two, again til the oil’s separated,  swirl in a tablespoon of liaojiu a.k.a. Shaoxing wine, and after a quick mix,  toss in a quarter cup of water. Then just swap your flame to high, and let all that reduce away.  After about five to ten minutes of bubbling, the water should be basically gone and you should be  looking at something a bit like this. And then now at this point, it’ll be totally ready to  top on your cheeseburger, or mix into your compound butter, or whatever you want to do.So, I guess we completely lost our sponsorship opportunity for Lee Kum Kee (“meow”)… while  we are not the biggest fans of this product, but Lee Kum Kee does make really good Hoisin  and Char Siu sauce (“meow”), and their oyster sauce is also pretty decent. So right! Check  out the recipe in the description box (“meow…”), a big thank you for  everyone that’s supporting us on Patreon… and of course, subscribe for more Chinese cooking videos.\n"