1 lb squid, cleaned chinese-style (see b, elow)
2 tbsp fermented, salted black beans (avai, lable at asian
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp rice wine, or 2 tbs mirin or sherry
1 tsp ginger, grated
2 scallions, chopped into 1/2-inch pi, eces
1 tb regular soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp cornstarch dissolved in
1 tbsp water
2 tbsp vegetable oil
Directions
Many people shy away from dishes with names like Black Bean Sauce
Squid because they think it involves the preparation of a complicated
sauce. In fact it is quite easy. The black beans themselves,
fermented and salted when you buy them, are the sauce. All you do is
add a little rice wine to make a paste. Then it's just like any
other stir-fry++a couple of minutes of high-heat cooking,
continuously stirring, and the dish is done.
Prepare black bean sauce mixture by adding to the beans: rice wine,
soy sauce and sugar. Let sit for
15 minutes.
Saute garlic and ginger in the oil over medium heat in a heavy frying
pan or wok until garlic is slightly browned. Turn up heat. Add squid
and scallions. Stir-fry for 30 seconds. Pour in black bean sauce
mixture, and cook for 2 minutes. Add cornstarch and, when sauce
thickens, remove from heat and serve.
[Score squid diagonally at three quarter inch intervals. Turn and
repeat at right angles to original cuts. Don't cut all the way
through the squid body. Cut each scored squid body into three or
four pieces. When cooked, the squid will roll up and the
crosshatching will catch and hold the sauce. It's much easier to do
than to describe. S.C.]
From "The International Squid Cookbook" by Isaac Cronin,
Aris Books, Berkeley, Ca. 1981 ISBN 0-915572-61-3
Posted by Stephen Ceideberg; February 22 1993.
Servings: 1 servings
Black Bean Sauce Squid Recipe brought to you by Recipe Ideas
Categories: Bean; Fish; Sauce; Seafood; Vegetable
The History of Recipes
We can track the history of `recipes` back into the far past, at least as far back as ancient Egypt, and possibly even further than that. However, in the main part, these early records were just basic pictorial, hieroglyphic or cunieform instructions for preparing food.
In fact, the oldest recipe discovered so far, according to historians is a series of clay tablets in ancient Sumerian which show the preparation of bread which is then used to make a drink, quite possibly a form of beer as it is recorded as having made anyone who tried it feel exhilarated. Later on, in Roman times around 25BC a man called Apicius created a number of documents detailing recipes cooked by wealthy roman citizens. He describes how the meals of wealthy Romans were separated into starters, main course and dessert, something we still use today. He also recounts how the ancient Romans made use of a wide range of aromatic flavours, including a few that are still present in modern kitchens like bay, mint and parsley. Later on in the 1400s, knights returning from the crusades brought us many foods and herbs from Arab cuisine, such as rosemary and coriander. These new herbs and spices led to a torrent in recipe publications, most of which are kept safe in academic collections. For the next few years, the rich families of Wesstern Europe competed to offer the most exotic meals, and because of this cooks and their recipe collections were greatly in demand. Nevertheless, it was during the nineteenth century that haute cuisine and recipe books reached a high level of popularity. The Famous Mrs Isabella Beeton in the UK, and the equally well-known Fannie Farmer in the USA, dedicated the best years of their lives to assembling, trying out, and recording recipes that were common in the better off homes of the day. By the advent of the twentieth century, cooking publications are in great demand, mostly as a result of higher levels of literacy, people having more free time and having more money. The introduction of the TV brings us TV cookery programs and the recipe books that accompanied them. And that pretty much brings us to the present day and the internet revolution, permitting everyone to search through massive numbers of recipes just like those on sites such as the one you are reading now. |
We hope you enjoy this Black Bean Sauce Squid recipe.
