When you discover you have allergies and need to cut certain foods out from your diet, especially if you’ve been used to eating and enjoying them in the past, finding new and exciting products that you can eat, that actually taste nice, can be a bit of a highlight. I am always finding new things and thought perhaps I should share them on here, so this is hopefully going to be a regular feature on the what allergy? blog.
Marks & Spencers do an absolutely delicious Black Bean Cooking Sauce which is fantastic with chicken or beef.
If you are pushed for time and can’t face cooking from scratch, again! then this is a really great, fast and easy meal to cook. All you need is 200g of meat, or whatever you want to cook it with, a wok and some sesame oil. I’m sure you could just cook it in a large saucepan if you don’t have a wok.
It does contain soya, wheat, barley and gluten, but it is dairy and nut free. A result! It’s also pretty good in terms of the kind of ingredients it contains. If you were making it from scratch you would use similar ingredients. No artificial stuff, flavourings or preservatives.
Ingredients:
Water, Salted black beans (8%), red & green peppers, dark soy sauce, brown sugar, water chestnuts (6%), onions, cornflour, rice wine vinegar, rapeseed oil, garlic puree, ginger puree, ground black pepper.
Salted black beans – contains soya beans, salt and wheatflour.
Dark soy sauce – contains water, soya bean extract, salt, sugar, barley malt extract, wheatflour.
Looking at these ingredients here, if you did make it from scratch you could probably very easily make it wheat and gluten free by using soya sauce which was suitable. Tamari soya sauce is wheat and gluten free. Always, always read the label in case this, or any recipe has been changed.
Do be very careful when eating or buying black bean sauce products as some recipes suggest using peanut oil. Sesame oil is a great alternative as it has a very nutty taste but is suitable for some peanut allergy sufferers.
It was dead easy to make. Here’s how to do it:
1. In a hot wok, heat a tablespoon of sesame oil
2. Fry the meat strips for approximately three minutes
3. Pour over the sauce and cook for 10 to 15 minutes.
I cooked it for 15 minutes and it made a deliciously sticky, gooey sauce. It was very very tasty and great served with rice noodles. It comes in a 370g jar which is about enough to serve two, but it keeps in the fridge for a few days so just use half a jar if cooking for one.
No picture of the finished article I’m afraid. It wasn’t on the plate for long enough! When I make it again, which will be pretty soon, a jar is waiting in the cupboard, I will update with a photo.
Marks out of ten?
I’d give this 9/10
Have you tried it? What did you think? What would you score it?
I have an allergy to soy sauce and would be interested to know if people have found any substitutes for this item as I do like Chinese dishes. Also interested to know if salted black beans can be the original cause of allergy to soy sauce – is it made from them? Black bean sauce contains both. I am not allergic to soya in general – ok with soya milk etc, apparently.