Braised Black Cabbage and Noodles in Black Bean Sauce (From Scratch!)

Ah, I missed having a bursting fridge. The farmer's markets took a break for Christmas, so it has been two weeks since the first farmer's market of the new year. Maybe it's because I've been surrounded by all sorts of beautiful fresh produce and been spoilt for choice for so long, but the few wanders down Tesco's aisles had been stifling. I'm not a snob at all, but I just felt very bored and uninspired to do anything exciting with the third bag of spring greens or shrunken savoy cabbage.

It felt good to wake at 5 and return to the market last Saturday and to see my fridge bursting with food like a happy fat man, post-buffet. People seem to think that winter doesn't really bring much excitement on the produce front (especially if you're stuck with the aforementioned spring greens and shrunken savoy cabbages), but I love all my winter roots and hardy greens. My favourite is the black cabbage, also called the tuscan kale, or dinosaur kale, or if you want to sound posh, cavolo nero. It's a magnificent deep deep greeen, almost black, and has a gorgeous texture that stands up to long slow stews and braises, so it's perfect for all those winter soups. 

I braised it with fermented salted black beans, Chinese-style, kind of because I wanted to go for a sort-of alliteration and the double 'black', hur. But it turned out great and I thought it a wonderful chance to show you how you can make black bean sauce (and noodles) from scratch. It's stupid to buy a jar of the ready-made paste when you can make it yourself without any random preservatives; a jar of salted black beans can last you for ages and is nothing but salt and black beans, fermented the good old way so you can just leave it on your kitchen cupboard for an infinite (or so my mum says) period of time. This black bean sauce is versatile to be tossed with not just noodles, but your favourite vegetable or animal.

GARLIC BLACK BEAN SAUCE

makes 1/4 cup
Ingredients

2 tbsp fermented black beans
4 cloves garlic
1/2 cup homemade (asian) stock, or water if desperate
1 tbsp good soy sauce (traditionally fermented)
2 tbsp unrefined dark brown sugar
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
1 tbsp groundnut oil or lard from happy pigs
1 tsp cornstarch + 1 tsp water to form a slurry

Method
1. Rinse the fermented black beans of excess surface salt. Chop the garlic and mash together with the black beans into a rough paste.
2. Heat the oil and saute the black bean-garlic paste till fragrant.
3. Add the stock, soy sauce, sugar and sesame oil, and bring to a boil, let simmer till reduced by half.
4. Add the cornstarch slurry slowly and stir and continue to let it simmer until thickened.
5. You can now pour this over blanched veggies or noodles or toss pre-velveted chicken or flash-fried slices of beef back into the wok for a black bean sauce <insert>.

I'll give you an example.

BLACK BEAN NOODLES WITH BRAISED BLACK CABBAGE AND CHICKEN
serves 1-2

Ingredients
1 large bunch of black cabbage, chopped into bite size pieces
1 free-range chicken leg, skin on
1 handful of dried thick rice noodles
ingredients for black bean sauce, above
1 tbsp of groundnut oil

Method
1. Heat oil and when medium hot, add the chicken leg skin down to sear. When golden brown on the outside, but not yet fully cooked on the inside, remove and set aside.
2. Follow instructions for black bean sauce as per above, till Step 3.
3. Add the black cabbage and seared chicken leg to the simmering black bean sauce and stock, cover and let simmer for a good 30 min before lifting the lid to let it reduce.
4. Meanwhile, add the rice noodles to a pot of boiling water with a drop of oil added to cook, for about 5 minutes (or as per package instructions). Drain and scoop into bowls.
6. Thicken the black bean sauce with the cornstarch slurry (see Step 4 above) and pour the sauce along with the cabbage and chicken over the noodles. If you can be bothered to/ am taking photos for your blog eh hem, pick out the chicken and cabbage and place nicely on the side before pouring the sauce over.
7. Dig in with your chopsticks making sure it's all well mixed and the noodles are coated with the sauce. Slurp.

These black bean noodles are sometimes known as jajangmyeon (Korean), which came from the Chinese zha jiang mian, which is however made from fermented broad bean (dou ban jiang, I talked about this before) or soybean paste. Both are typically made with wheat flour noodles, but I used the thick rice spaghetti instead because I always have them in my kitchen cupboard (just above the black beans!) and I like its slippery blandness against the pungent sauce. It's also gluten-free for all those watching your diet for the new year (or first month of the new year). 

So I'm not sure what it is exactly that I have here, but it's good. These little black beads may not look like much, in fact I hear my friends say they resemble rat's poop, but they pack a punch. The black bean sauce is rich and savoury and intense, and the black cabbage, strong, earthy, and meltingly tender, all wonderful tossed through the smooth noodles. Slurp. CAUTION: Messy affair, do not eat with white shirt on.