Chicken in Black Bean Sauce — Pearl City Style - Casa Adora

Pearl City was a Chinese restaurant in Manchester's Chinatown on George Street. It is closed now, which is a shame, because Chicken in Black Bean Sauce was the dish that taught me what a fermented black soybean could do.

This was the late 1990s. I was driving down to Manchester regularly from Lancashire, and Pearl City was the destination — not for the décor, which was functional at best, but for the food, which was exactly what Cantonese cooking is supposed to be: clean, precise, and built around a handful of ingredients that understood each other completely. The chicken was velveted. The sauce was dark, savoury and slightly glossy. The fermented black beans cut through everything with a dense, pungent umami that no other ingredient quite replicates.

Back in Lancashire, I used to buy Lee Kum Kee black bean sauce jars and rinse the beans to strip out the preservatives, then cook them down to get close to what Pearl City had done. Close enough to convince myself. Then the move first to Cumbria, and eventually to Andalucía in 2012, and the jar disappeared from the shopping list for over a decade.

September 2026. A case of Eat Wholesome Organic black beans arrived at Casa Adora, a bag of Diamond fermented salted black soybeans followed, and a jar of Nearly Lee Kum Kee Black Bean Sauce ended up in the fridge. Time to cook the dish that started all of this.

The History Behind Chicken in Black Bean Sauce

The version of chicken in black bean sauce most people recognise — velveted chicken, glossy dark sauce, onions and peppers — is a product of the Chinese diaspora. The original Cantonese dish, douchi ji (豆豉鸡), was considerably simpler: chicken, garlic, ginger, and fermented black soybeans, cooked together without distraction.

The fermented black soybean — douchi in Chinese — is one of the oldest soybean products in history, dating back to at least 90 BCE. The Qian Hanshu, the History of the Former Han Dynasty, records that two of the wealthiest merchants in the world in 76 AD were douchi merchants. Ancient Cantonese cooks preserved soybeans with salt and mould to prevent waste, creating an ingredient dense with natural glutamates — the basis of umami — that Cantonese chefs prized for its ability to cut through grease and bring deep savoury balance to proteins.

When Cantonese cooks migrated and adapted to local markets, the dish evolved: more vegetables, a smoother sauce, sweetness adjusted for Western palates. It became a foundational staple of global Chinese takeaway culture — and for a generation of British diners, the version they grew up with was the one on the menu at places like Pearl City.

This is the Casa Adora take on that version.

Chicken in Black Bean Sauce Recipe

The Nearly Lee Kum Kee Black Bean Sauce jar does the heavy lifting here. It replaces both the whole fermented beans and the sauce components in a from-scratch version — one jar, one step, considerably less fuss. If you want the full from-scratch douchi ji approach — whole fermented beans, built from scratch, pure Cantonese — that version is worth the extra time. For a hot September evening at Casa Adora, the jar is the right answer.

Ingredients

(Serves 1)

The chicken & marinade

• 1 corn-fed free-range chicken breast, sliced into strips
• 1 tsp light soy sauce
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp Shaoxing rice wine
• 1 tsp cornflour

The aromatics

• ½ white onion, diced
• 2–3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tsp fresh ginger, minced
• 2 spring onions, white and green parts separated

The sauce

• 2–3 tbsp Nearly Lee Kum Kee Black Bean Sauce
• 3 tbsp water
• 1 tsp light soy sauce
• 1 tsp sugar

The vegetables

• ½ courgette, sliced
• 1 carrot, diced
• 1 heaped tbsp Eat Wholesome organic black beans, drained
• Handful of frozen peas

To serve

• Cooked pearl barley (cooled and reheated — resistant starch)

Method

• Marinate the chicken. Mix the chicken strips with the light soy sauce, sesame oil, Shaoxing wine and cornflour. Set aside for at least 15 minutes.
• Sear the chicken. Heat a wok or wide pan over a high heat until smoking. Add a splash of neutral oil and sear the chicken in a single layer until golden. Remove and set aside.
• Cook the vegetables. Add the onion, courgette and carrot to the same pan and stir-fry for 3–4 minutes until starting to soften. Remove and set aside with the chicken.
• Fry the aromatics. Reduce the heat slightly. Add a little more oil if needed. Fry the garlic, ginger and white spring onion parts for 30 seconds until fragrant.
• Add the sauce. Spoon in the Nearly Lee Kum Kee Black Bean Sauce. Add the water, soy sauce and sugar. Stir to combine and let it bubble for a minute.
• Combine. Return the chicken and vegetables to the pan. Add the frozen peas and black beans. Toss everything together over a high heat until well coated and the peas are warmed through.
• Finish. Scatter over the green spring onion tops. Serve immediately over reheated pearl barley, steamed rice or noodles.

Chef's Notes

The velveting step — cornflour in the marinade — is what keeps the chicken tender rather than tough. Don't skip it and don't rush the marinating time.

The jar keeps in the fridge for two weeks. This recipe uses 2–3 tablespoons, so one jar covers at least two cooks.

If you can't find Shaoxing rice wine, dry sherry is the closest substitute. The flavour won't be identical but it does the same structural job.

Peppers are the traditional addition — green or red, sliced, added with the onion at step 3. Courgette and peas work equally well and are what happened to be in the Casa Adora fridge on the evening this was first cooked.

Pearl barley served alongside — cooked ahead, cooled and reheated — adds resistant starch to the bowl. Cook it the day before, refrigerate overnight, and reheat in a splash of water until steaming. It also absorbs the black bean sauce well and makes the dish considerably more substantial for one.

A Note on the Lee Kum Kee Connection

Lee Kum Kee black bean sauce is the jar that sat at the back of British Chinese kitchen cupboards for thirty years. It is still there. The Nearly Lee Kum Kee version on this site is a homemade take on it — Diamond fermented salted black soybeans, dark soy, Shaoxing rice wine, garlic and ginger, one 200ml jar, very close to the original.

If you want to try the authentic douchi route — whole fermented beans, rinsed and fried with the aromatics before the sauce goes in — the flavour is deeper and more complex. The jar is the weeknight version. Both are valid.

FOOTNOTES

This chicken in black bean sauce recipe is part of my Black Bean Recipes collection — tinned and fermented, British-Caribbean and East Asian, breakfast and dinner.

It also features in my Chicken Recipes collection — a growing set of dishes from the Casa Adora kitchen and the road.

The pearl barley in this dish makes it a resistant starch recipe — cook it, cool it, use again.

Find more recipes and food adventures here.

Wonky photos, proper food, genuine adventures — The Flexible Chef