Sichuan's Naturally Brewed Soy Sauce

Have you ever tasted traditionally made, real Chinese soy sauce? If you live outside China, the answer is very likely no. Mass-market, grocery-store brands of soy sauce are either chemically concocted or naturally brewed for a short period of time, necessitating the addition of, variously, sugar, alcohol, vinegar, caramel coloring, msg, disodium 5 ribonucleotides and preservatives to make them tasty. 

Zhongba, a famous brand in Sichuan since 1828, is naturally brewed for 360 days from a recipe of only water, soybeans, wheat, salt and mushroom. It gets an extra shot of natural glutamates from the mushroom—specifically the prized wild "mouth mushroom" of northern China—without tasting of mushroom. And it produces a soy sauce that is full-bodied, deeply red and intensely flavorful. 

We invite you to try the longest-aged Chinese soy sauce in the U.S., available exclusively at The Mala Market. We have tried to keep Zhongba's premium flagship soy sauce pictured above at a reasonable price for everyday use, while the completely handcrafted version—coming Dec. 1!—will be a special-occasion soy sauce. 

(Sorry gluten-free eaters, but all traditionally made Chinese soy sauces include wheat to jumpstart the fermentation process. We promise to continue looking for one that does not.)

Red-Oil Doubanjiang

Red-oil douban, which is young chile bean paste mixed with chili oil, has become very popular in Sichuan in recent times, due both to its fresh-red color and to its lower price point compared to pure, aged Pixian douban. 

In her new cookbook, The Food of Sichuan, Fuchsia Dunlop recommends "following Sichuanese practice and using young chili bean paste"  or red-oil douban for stir-fried dishes and dips and "darker Pixian paste for mapo tofu and red-braised stews."

We often just combine the two—one for bright color and one for deep taste! But they are really pretty much interchangeable in most recipes, depending on personal preference. 

Here are some recipes where red-oil douban would be divine:

• Stir-Fried Bacon in Sichuan Bean Sauces, on The Mala Market Blog (this recipe also uses fermented black beans and sweet wheat paste, both of which just arrived fresh from Sichuan)
• Walter Kei’s Chili Pork, on Grace Young's website
• Fish-Fragrant Eggplant, in Fuchsia Dunlop's
  Food of Sichuan

Sichuan Fermented Black Beans

Everyone loves Chinese fermented black beans, which are little unami flavor bombs. While Westerners are most familiar with the Cantonese version—salty, individual, dry beans—different regions of China make douchi in different ways. Sichuan ferments the soybeans in a wet brine of salt, wheat, liquor and spices, resulting in moist, plump beans surrounded by a bit of paste. They taste purely of fermented soybean, and do not need to be rinsed or rehydrated and plumped up as the Cantonese version does. It bears repeating: Do not rinse or soak, despite what a recipe may say. 

Recipes with douchi:

• Rabbit With Peanuts in Hot Bean Sauce, in Fuchsia Dunlop's Food of Sichuan
• Stir-Fried Bitter Melon With Fermented Black Beans, on Omnivore's Cookbook site (you can also substitute zucchini if she doesn't convince you to try bitter melon)
• Black Bean Chili Oil, by The Mala Market for Food52