'Molte Piccante'

April 8, 2010 4:36 PM

What is this delicious thing? Photos: 1 2 3 4

La casa vostok is a rabid fan of this condiment, and we have many questions about it:

1. Who is the lady on the label?
2. Is this a generic condiment? Are there others like it?
3. What kinds of 'fagioli' or 'beans' are used in this thing?
4. Does this thing have a website? A wikipedia page?
5. Do you know of any recipes using this thing?
6. How do you eat it? (We dump it on everything)
7. Please translate the Chinese print on the label for us.

The text in the last image translates to:

'BEAN SAUCE'
Ingredients: Bean oil pepper peanut flavor enhancer etc

posted by vostok to Food & Drink (9 answers total)

Website
posted by Paragon at 4:40 PM on April 8, 2010

Just sauté chopped Asian vegetables and tofu or chicken in a pan/wok with a tiny bit of sesame oil, then mix in a big spoonful of that stuff for fantastic spicy stir fry that turns white rice florescent orange.
posted by applemeat at 4:47 PM on April 8, 2010

Here is the actual product as seen on their web site. They describe it as "Oil chilli" (sic).
posted by drpynchon at 4:48 PM on April 8, 2010

I'm pretty sure that the lady on the label is Tao Huabi, the founder of the company.
posted by Paragon at 4:52 PM on April 8, 2010

I think it's hot bean paste. With that name, you can google plenty of recipes to use it with.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubanjiang
posted by advicepig at 4:58 PM on April 8, 2010

That isn't doubanjiang. It's just chilis in oil with peanuts. It's a very common Chinese condiment and you can find all sorts of different brands of it in any Chinese grocery store.

The label lists the ingredients and a small generic blurb about the sauce being a Guizhou product made from traditional techniques and describing the flavor. It also mentions that it's good for eating with cold noodles.
posted by pravit at 5:16 PM on April 8, 2010

That's chiu chow chili oil. Good stuff. The one I'm linking to doesn't contain peanuts, but I've had both kinds. As pravit said, it's a very common condiment and there are tons of different brands.
posted by yawper at 8:46 PM on April 8, 2010

I'm with Yawper. The Lee Kum Kee brand is delicious. Unfortunately for some reason, it only seems to be available in the UK about half the time.
posted by rhymer at 4:50 AM on April 9, 2010

There's a really good Sichuan restaurant around the corner from where I am in Nanjing that swears by the Lao Gan Ma brand for all of these types of condiments. I was eating some dry-fried spicy mouth-numbing green beans, and asked about the small, seemingly-pickled, and oh-so-delicious black beans in the dish, and I ended up listening to about 10 minutes of why this brand is so much better than any others out there. Don't know anything about this particular condiment, but I do know the brand is well-regarded.


Not sure if you'll find a recipe for this particular sauce, but for a ton of great Chinese recipes, check out the recipe archive at Appetite for China.
posted by msbrauer at 1:04 AM on April 10, 2010