Tianmianjiang

Tianmianjiang (pâte de farine sucrée)

What it is

The name says sweet flour paste, and the Sichuan version contains no soybean at all: wheat flour, salt, koji mould and months of fermentation during which enzymes break the starch down into sugar. Thick fermented jiang predates soy sauce by more than a thousand years and was made from grain, fish and meat long before soybeans became the default.

In the kitchen

Fry it in oil for about thirty seconds before anything else enters the wok — unfried it tastes raw and pasty, and frying is what releases the malty depth of jing jiang rou si. Do not swap in a sweet bean sauce sold under the same Chinese name: it is saltier, and you will have to correct the sugar.

Goes with

Pork Duck Spring onion Cucumber Shaoxing wine Soy sauce

Same species

Bulgur Couscous Einkorn Emmer wheat Wholemeal flour T45 flour

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