The market · Seasonings and ferments · East Asia

Sweet bean sauce

Tianmianjiang: a thick, dark, sweet-savoury paste of fermented wheat flour — the sauce brushed inside Peking duck pancakes and the base of zhajiangmian.

sweet · savoury · thick

What to do with it

Classics built on it
ShandongShandong jianbingA paper-thin sheet of millet, corn or wheat batter, cooked dry and crisp on a wide iron griddle, and rolled around a whole spring onion and sweet bean sauce.No one here has made it yetFujianPopiahA soft, paper-thin wheat crêpe rolled round a filling of braised vegetables, egg, prawn and crushed peanuts.No one here has made it yetBeijingPeking duckA whole duck, its skin dried and glazed, roasted until it shatters, then carved at the table and wrapped in thin pancakes with sweet bean sauce, spring onion and cucumber.No one here has made it yetBeijingZhajiangmianThick wheat noodles under a spoonful of dark, salty sauce — bean paste fried slowly with diced pork — and a heap of raw, crunchy vegetables to mix through.No one here has made it yet

If you can't find it

Chinese grocers, as tianmianjiang.

  1. 1Hoisin
    The same, thinned with a little water
    You lose its savoury, fermented-wheat depth — hoisin is sweeter and more spiced.

Goes with

porkcucumberspring onionpancake

Knowing it

Where to buy
Chinese grocers. Hoisin is sweeter and spiced; use it only when you have to.
Worth knowing
Fry it gently in oil before adding anything else; the raw, floury edge goes and it darkens and deepens.

Kitchens that keep it in

Shandong province, on China's east coastShandongThe oldest of China's great regional kitchens and the root of northern banquet cooking: clear and milky stocks, fierce quick frying, Yellow Sea seafood, and scallions by the armful.7 classicsBeijing and the northern plain, northern ChinaBeijingA wheat-and-mutton kitchen of the dry north, salty and savoury with fermented bean pastes, where palace banquets and street snacks grew up side by side.8 classics

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