brown bean paste?

[aveoamare]

I'm making a chinese dish and I need brown bean paste. I went to my local asian grocery store and all i could find was soy bean paste. Its brown, its from beans...is it the same? please tell me that it is b/c its a treck to get to the store!

[pupon]

Brown bean paste IS made from fermented soy beans. Often time you can use black bean paste or hot bean paste (my favorite)

[mudbug]

aveoamare,

What ethnicity of Asian Grocery is the store you visited? I find it odd that the wouldn't have brown bean paste. It comes in cans and jars.

[aveoamare]

Its a general asian food store, they have most of the isles divided by ethnicity. one isle is labeled bean paste (among other things), but the only bean paste i found was black and it was canned. I bought one labeled soy bean paste and it looks like what you showed a picture of. (not the jar, the paste itself) It was next to the red/black bean paste, and chile paste. It may have been down the korean isle, i'm pretty sure. When i broght it home, i found out that I had a bag of red miso in my fridge, and it was also labeled "soy bean paste" so i was scared, but they consistency was a bit different, and the taste as well. This is what really confused me in the first place.

[tralfaz]

If it's a chinese recipe, black bean paste would work. Sometimes it's called fermented bean paste, it's chunky, strong and usually has garlic added. Check the ingredients for fermented black beans or fermented soy beans.