I don't have black bean sauce but I do have fermented black beans. Can I substitute those just by mashing, without worrying about any of the othe...

@AJ, I think you can. All those ingredients in the recipe are in Ming Tsai's recipe for black bean-garlic sauce, so you should be ok. Here's the recipe: @AJ, you can make black bean sauce with those fermented black beans: https://www.ming.com/food-and-wine/recipes/season-1/black-bean-garlic-sauce.htm

I think you can make this. Doesn't look like it takes that long to make a batch.

I looked at my jar of black bean sauce and here are the ingredients: fermented black beans, garlic, miso, sugar, naturally brewed soy sauce, salt, vinegar, cornstarch, ginger. So if you doctor it up a little, it should work.