With my husband being a huge fan of black bean sauce and I a fan of ho fun (flat white rice noodles) I thought I should attempt to merge the two for dinner one night.
I did have second thoughts about attempting this dish because a) I always thought ho fun would be a nightmare to cook and stick to the pan but I needed have worried. As long as you add to the sauce it is completely fine. b) Not only had I not cooked ho fun before but black bean sauce from scratch is also new to me.
My mum is a pro at making beef with green peppers in black bean sauce (I guess many chinese mums with a background in the take away business would be) and tried her best to tell me the method over the phone while I was dashing around Wing Yip looking for the fermented black beans. Anyway, overall I was very pleased with the results. I used up some left over broccoli in the fridge rather than purposely going out to buy red peppers and mushrooms which lead to a happy discovery. The broccoli actually works very well with black bean sauce and the florets holds the sauce so each bite is full of flavour.
This dish is super versatile, you can substitute the chicken with any meat (beef or prawns are popular) or even tofu. Egg noodles or rice noodles can be used instead of ho fun. Indeed, you could even just cook the black bean sauce dish and serve with boiled rice. Also, as mentioned before, experiment with the vegetables and make some interesting discoveries of your own.
Time: 25 mins approx. (including prep)
Serves: 4 (in our case two dinners and two packed lunches)
Ingredients
2 x 400g packs of fresh ho fun (anymore than this and it wouldn't have fit into my pan)
6 x pieces of skinless and boneless chicken thigh sliced.
2 x tablespoon of oil
2 x tablespoons of fermented black beans (washed and mashed)
2 x cloves of garlic
1 x slice of ginger (crushed and sliced into smaller pieces)
2 x tablespoon of soy sauce
1 x tablespoon of oyster sauce
1 x tablespoon of sugar
1 x table spoon of cornstarch (mixed in with water)
half a cup of water
1 x red onion (diced or sliced, however you prefer)
1 full head of broccoli cut into small florets
In a large frying pan or wok, heat the oil until very hot before throwing in the garlic, ginger and black beans and frying for a few minutes and transferring to a bowl.
Then stir-fry the onions, broccoli and chicken. Once the chicken is browned, add the black bean sauce mixture and fry until the chicken is almost cooked before adding the water, soy sauce, oyster sauce and sugar. Taste and amend flavour according to how you prefer then add in the cornstarch. Once you get a thicker consistency to the sauce add in the ho fun. Continue to cook until the ho fun is cooked through and enjoy!
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| So easy you will wonder why you didn't try to make it before! |
