Green Beans: Chinese stir fried green beans last night
DH cooked these for us last night. I often make them, but it’s always nice when someone else takes a turn at the wok or oven. They were a bit different than the ones I make. He says that next time he will add a few more chopped scallions and also toasted sesame oil.
Green beans are plentiful now at farm stands and in home gardens.
Do you like green beans? How do you like to prepare them? I hope to make that delicious three bean salad one of these days. I adore grean beans nad sometimes snack on them raw from the garden. I like leaving the little tail on them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GH4bUpSFcUo
The recipe does not require much oil, the cooking pan does not need to be wildly hot. You can omit any meat, ot use other protein like chicken, beef, and maybe chopped shrimp would be interesting. I can imagine it with mushrooms or fried tofu cubes. The recipe is flexible — you can add toasted sesame seeds, chopped roasted peanuts, red pepper, lots of things.
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Szechuan green beans?
Comments (8)This was an interesting thread to me as I love this dish but we always order it in restaurants instead of making it at home. So it wasn't until I Googled recipes today that I was amused (and somewhat appalled, I admit) by most of the recipes for this Chinese stir-fry standard. I don't know if it will help if I describe this dish as we know it, in the San Francisco Bay Area, but here goes: In Szechuan (now Sichuan) the technique for this dish is known as "dry cooked"; that is, no batter or sauce, but lots of oil is used - a full 1 cup for a l lb of beans. The beans are stir-fried until blistered and almost tender, then removed. A very little amount of ground pork, I'd estimate 3-4 oz at most - is cooked with a tablespoon or so of dark soy (if you mixed 2 teasp soy with 1 tsp light molasses, that's an acceptable sub). Contrary to many recipes, there is no garlic or ginger or onion traditionally used in this recipe. What IS used is the canned Szechwan vegetables, which are a salty pickled cabbage mix, chopped fine. They really should be lightly rinsed, but a lot of "old school" cooks don't do this; the idea being that dishes are salty so that a very little flavors the rice, and the food goes further and more cheaply. The pork is tossed with the chopped canned veggies - you might be surprised how many Chinese restaurants use commercial products for a shortcut - and the beans are returned to the pan for a final heating and tossing with lots of red pepper flakes. I would imagine the onion came about as a sub for these canned Chinese veggies, which aren't always easy to find even here. Most of the photos on the web show large clumps of ground pork with very little green beans. Out here, the dish is 98% green beans, with only a very little, very fine crumbles of the mixed pork and veggies. In Chinese cuisine they describe dishes and foods by well-defined 'tastes'. This dish is traditionally: spicy, oily, salty, and sour....See MoreWho posted about roasting green beans?
Comments (6)I winged them because I didn't have the recipe. I hope the person who originally posted about roasting them will eventually chime in. I partially defrosted the bag of frozen whole petite green beans. I lined a jellyroll pan with the Reynolds non stick foil and plopped in the beans and spread them out into one single layer. Then I dribbled about 1-2 tbsp. of olive oil and added several grindings of black pepper. I roasted them at 425 degrees while I was fixing the rest of dinner, about 20 minutes (remember, they were still a bit frozen & watery). When I checked them, they were fully cooked. Then I turned up the heat to 450 and set the oven to convection. I wanted them to get crispier. After about five minutes, I took them out. I'd love to try it with regular sized frozen whole green beans and especially fresh beans. The petite beans shriveled up quite a bit, but I didn't mind. My husband said they gave the illusion of eating French fries -- a healthy, crunchy snack....See MoreRECIPE: Basil Fettucine w/ green beans, walnuts & creme fraiche
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Comments (2)I had a very rough weekend and was late getting this set up. As of last night (day 1) the two batches of seed smelled like wet corn with maybe a hint of fermentation. The 2014 grown batch should be almost completely viable, but I wanted it for a comparison/baseline. Is there a corn forum I can post this test in? I can't seem to find one. :)...See Morepetalique
last year
schoolhouse_gwagain
last yearpetalique
last yearlast modified: last yearThat particular batch didn’t look pretty, but tasted great. Sometimes I make them very charred; at other times, I cook the beans less and add extra chilies and color, or roasted peanuts (not traditional).
petalique
last yearpetalique
last yearlast modified: last yearDH made these for lunch. This batch has more ground pork than I usually use. It has a lot of heat and a bit of sweet.
(Not too much heat. Steamed rice beath the beans.)This meal is so quick. He also included scallions, toasted sesame oil, garlic, maybe ginger.
sealavender