Cantonese Clams in Black Bean Sauce

The beloved Cantonese dish clams in black bean sauce (chǐzhī chǎo xiàn, 豉汁炒蜆) "traces its origins back to the coastal regions of Guangdong and neighboring Hong Kong, where seafood is abundant and douchi, one of China’s oldest known soybean ferments, is commonly used," writes Jess Eng.

Jess goes on to recount a memorable experience eating the dish at a notoriously boisterous dai pai dong in Hong Kong, but her most enduring memories of clams in black bean sauce are from growing up in a Cantonese family in San Francisco:

"...While it is a quintessential Cantonese stir-fry, my family never made it at home," she writes. "We thought of it strictly as a restaurant dish, reserved for family gatherings, Sunday dim sum brunches and roundtable birthday dinners. So, for me, it always felt like special-occasion food. And I’m not alone in this association. Most Chinese Americans I know grew up with this dish, enjoying it at similar family gatherings.

'"My friend Allen Cao, for instance, also grew up eating this dish, but on the other side of the country.... Allen and I both remember the same ritual: families packed into round tables, waiters balancing plates of glossy stir-fries and petite bowls of perfectly steamed rice. My family ordered clams with black bean sauce alongside a whole steamed fish or braised beef with radish. For Allen, a trip to Joy Tsin Lau, a neighborhood Chinatown banquet hall [in Philadelphia], meant Cantonese staples such as salt and pepper frogs, West Lake beef soup and, of course, clams stir-fried with black beans. Allen’s father, Jimmy Cao, had spent some time working in Cantonese restaurants, so he occasionally made the dish at home for his family.

"Last year, when Allen and I first decided to start researching Chinese foodways together, with the idea of bringing attention to the dishes we both love (especially classic Fujian foods), we also started talking about black bean clams. We compared notes about the versions we had in our childhoods and worked on creating recipes that captured our preferred flavors. Allen also invited me to his dad’s house, to try his version. The dish, made from small yet meaty Manila clams tossed in a glossy sauce of fermented black beans, soy sauce and oyster sauce, doesn't stray far from what you’d find in the banquet halls of my childhood."
 

Meet Jess and Allen

Jess Eng is a Chinese American food and culture writer from San Francisco, where she learned to cook Cantonese recipes from her two grandmothers. Jess’s stories and recipes can be found in the Washington Post, the New York Times, Bon Appetit, Serious Eats, Eater, Epicurious and other outlets.

Allen Cao is the co-founder of Fuzhou America, a non-profit connecting the next generation of Fujianese across the world. He is also building YABA, a Fujianese rice wine company based in New York.

Jess and Allen bonded over a shared love of Chinese cuisine and culture and joined forces to preserve Fujianese and Fuzhounese homestyle recipes as well as the stories and history of Manhattan's Chinatown and the Chinese diaspora.
 

Egg Chow Fun (With the Works)

The launch of our Guizhou Black Bean Chili Oil takes me back to when I made a made-up version of chao mian every week from whatever was in my fridge and pantry to feed Fongchong during her first years in America, when she would eat Chinese food and Chinese food only. My Cantonese daughter with a Sichuanese palate preferred her Chinese food with bold flavors, which is why my sauce for chao mian always included a black bean chili oil. 

Nowadays she has a much more wide-ranging palate, but I still make chao mian, stir-fried wheat noodles, and, more often, chao he fen, stir-fried wide rice noodles, and the secret to the sauce is still black bean chili oil. 

Similar to beef chow fun, egg chow fun, or jīdàn chǎo hé fěn (鸡蛋炒河粉), usually also features green onions or garlic chives and mung bean sprouts. It may or may not contain an assortment of other add-ins: air-dried sausage, pork slivers, bok choy, red onion, red bell pepper, etc. 

The dried he fen we import for The Mala Market is made by rice noodle specialists in Guangdong Province. According to Baidu, jidan chao he fen originated in the Shahe area of Guangzhou around 1860, then spread throughout Guangdong and Guangxi and traveled with emigrants to Southeast Asia, where its offspring is known as char kway teow in Malaysia and Singapore, for example, and has a whole other slate of add-ins.

For this recipe I have added lap cheong and yu choy to the classic egg, scallion and bean sprout, but you do you, leaving out the sausage if you want to make it vegetarian, or subbing with different vegetables.

I give tips on how to make this oh-so-satisfying stir-fry from your pantry, including how to prep the dried he fen noodles and how to make egg ribbons that resemble noodles, as well as how to make that spicy + umami black bean noodle sauce. 
 

That Other Cantonese Fave

Both clams in black bean sauce and beef chow fun get their quintessential flavor not only from douchi but also from oyster sauce. You may recall that at the beginning of the year, we introduced a Fujian oyster sauce that is the most pure oyster sauce on the market. 

Those of you who truly love the taste of oyster have weighed in and agree with Jess, who writes: 

"Unlike companies like Lee Kum Kee, a popular brand that sells hundreds of sauces (including a commonly found oyster sauce), Yangjiang solely specializes in fish and oyster sauces. Its versions are, therefore, superb, even rave-worthy. Their oyster sauce is remarkably pure, clocking in at 75 percent oyster extract with nothing but sugar, cornstarch and wheat flour as flavorings and thickeners. It doesn’t make the dish taste any more fishy than a splash of fish sauce would. Instead, it heightens the briny sweetness of the clams and deepens their flavors without muddying them."