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Bean paste tips
Here's what to look for when buying and using soybean paste -- and what to avoid.
There is no standard labeling on soybean paste, so check the package ingredients to avoid confusion. Soybean paste can be labeled bean sauce, ground bean sauce or broad bean paste.
Bean paste should include only soybeans, wheat flour, salt, and water -- although sugar can be added. Products labeled "ground" have a smoother texture.
Bean paste will keep almost indefinitely in the refrigerator if stored in a tightly closed jar.
Brands with good bean texture and deeply salty flavor include Sze Chuan Food Products of Taiwan, Koon Chun of Hong Kong, and Har Har Pickle Food Factory of Taiwan.
Most Korean-made bean pastes are excellent alternatives, as is Japanese red miso paste -- especially when using chile sauce in a recipe.
Hot bean paste (or chili bean sauce), a mixture of bean paste and chile paste, is typically used in Southwestern Chinese cooking. Brands vary tremendously in intensity and flavor, but the Lian How brand is pretty close to the usual 50/50 ratio of bean paste to chile paste. Additional package ingredients signal that the product could be a condiment or a pre-mixed cooking sauce.
Ones to avoid - red bean paste, which is made from red azuki beans; and sweet bean paste, made from 1 part sugar to 4 parts bean paste; Cantonese-style black bean sauce, which is made from a different aging and fermentation process that results in blackened soybeans with a distinctive tannin-like component.
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