Suancai Doumi

Ingredients

Dried pinto beans (红豆) or kidney beans (腰豆), 110g

(from the cooked beans, mash ~1/10 of them and reserve; also reserve 1.25 cups of the cooking liquid)

Chinese pickled mustard greens (酸菜), 100g

Smoked Larou (烟熏腊肉/湖南腊肉), 15g, optional

Aromatics:

Garlic, 4 cloves, smashed;

Ginger (姜), ~1 inch, smashed;

Scallion, white and green part separated, white smashed and greens sliced

Spicy dried chilis, e.g. Heaven facing or Thai bird’s eye, ~3, halved

Lard (preferably), 2 tbsp, for frying

Baijiu (白酒) or Shaoxing wine (料酒/绍酒), 1 tbsp

Oil, 1.5 tbsp, for frying the mashed beans

Soy sauce (生抽), ½ tbsp

Ingredients to season the cooking liquid:

Salt, ¼ tsp;

Sugar, ¼ tsp;

Chicken bouillon powder (鸡粉), ¼ tsp

Final seasoning:

MSG (味精), ¼ tsp;

Dark Chinese vinegar (香醋/), ¼ tsp;

White pepper powder, a sprinkle, ~1/16 tsp

Directions

(Note: in place of the smoked larou and lard combination, you can also start this with some American style bacon. To do so, slice one strip of bacon into ~2 cm pieces. Render out the bacon grease over a medium low flame, supplement with extra oil if need be.)

Rinse the beans and soak them with cool water overnight. The following day, simmer – covered – over a medium-low flame for 60-90 minutes, or until the beans are soft.

(Alternatively, if you own a pressure cooker, simply use that instead of the soaking/simmering. I believe that this amount of beans should use about a half a liter of water and take ~30 minutes, but do do your own homework there)

Strain, and reserve 1.25 cups of the bean cooking liquid. Remove about a tenth of the beans, smash them, and reserve.

Mince the pickled mustard greens. Slice the smoked Larou, if using. Smash the garlic, ginger, and scallion whites; slice the scallion greens. Snip the stems off the chilis and discard, then slice in half.

To a wok – as always, first longyau: get the wok piping hot, add in the lard, give it a swirl. Over a medium-low flame, fry the larou for 1-2 minutes to flavor the oil, then scooch it up the side of the wok. Add in the garlic, ginger, and scallion whites, and up the flame to high. Stir fry for ~15 seconds, until fragrant. Add the chilis, quick mix. Swirl the baijiu or Shaoxing wine over the spatula and around the sides of the wok, quick mix.

Flame still on high, add in the pickled mustard greens. Fry for ~2 minutes, or until fragrant and the greens begin to ‘pop’. Lower the flame to medium-low, scooch everything up the side of the wok.

Add in the additional 1.5 tbsp of oil, and to that add in the mashed beans. Fry it together in the oil for ~1 minute, or until it begins to vaguely resemble a roux. Swap the flame back to high.

Add in the cooked beans, gently mix for ~30 seconds with everything. Swirl in the soy sauce. Add in the reserved bean cooking liquid, together with the “ingredients to season the cooking liquid”. Cover (lid ajar if it’s a heavy/tight fitting lid), simmer over medium for ~8 minutes.

After that time, remove any aromatics you do not want in the final dish (we remove the ginger and the scallion whites). Optionally swap over a high flame, and reduce to your desired consistency – we reduced for 3-4 minutes.

Add the “final seasoning”, together with the sliced scallion greens. Heat off, quick mix, out.