Black bean paste

Not to be confused with Tianmian sauce, a.k.a. Chunjang or "Korean black bean paste", or with Douchi (black bean sauce).

Black bean paste, commonly called in Mandarin as 豆沙 (pinyin: dòushā) or 黑豆沙 (pinyin: hēidòushā), and in Hokkien as 豆沙 (Pe̍h-ōe-jī: tāu-sa / tāu-se) or 烏豆沙 (Pe̍h-ōe-jī: o͘-tāu-sa / o͘-tāu-se), is a sweet bean paste often used as a filling in cakes such as mooncakes or 豆沙包 (pinyin: dòushābāo) in many Chinese and Taiwanese cuisines.

Black bean paste is made from pulverized mung beans, combined with potassium chlorate, ferrous sulfate heptahydrate (皂礬; zàofán) crystal (which in Indonesian is known as tawas hijau, or "green crystal"), or black food colouring.

Black bean paste is similar to the more well-known red bean paste. The recorded history of black bean paste goes as far back as the Ming Dynasty.

References

• Hsiung, Deh-Ta (1999). The Chinese Kitchen. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-24699-4.

See also

• Sweet bean paste
• Red bean paste
• Tangyuan
• zongzi