AT the start of the year, we tipped black beans to be the fashionable ingredient of 1999 and, no more than a week later, we came across this cracking recipe for black bean ratatouille, from that fine cook George McAlpin, of Portrush's excellent Ramore Restaurant.
The recipe uses salted Chinese black beans, intensely flavoured little black soybeans which are cooked and fermented with salt and spices. In southern China they are among the favourite flavourings.
You will find salted black beans in ethnic shops (where you will also find all the other ethnic ingredients used in this recipe). To use them, don't rinse them, and lightly crush them to release their flavours. I made this to partner some seared scallops, and have found it is marvellous with fish and shellfish. George McAlpin, however, serves it with a Mexican grilled fillet steak, and finishes the dish with tomato salsa, guacamole, sour cream, a chilli sauce and spring onions.
Black Bean Ratatouille
50 ml peanut oil
1 large knob ginger, peeled and cut into fine julienne
1 Spanish onion, peeled and cut into 2 cm cubes
150 g salted black beans, lightly crushed, unwashed
1 red capsicum, seeded and cut into 2 cm cubes
4 tablespoons hot bean paste
500 ml sake
250 ml mirin
125 ml rice-wine vinegar 30 ml sesame oil
To make the black bean ratatouille, heat up the peanut oil in a wok over high heat. When the oil is smoking, add the ginger and onions, and stir-fry for a few minutes. Add the black beans, capsicum and bean paste. Stir-fry for 1 minute.
Add the sake, mirin, rice-wine vinegar and sesame oil and simmer for 30 minutes until the mixture has reduced by about a third.