WW: Dry-Fried Sichuan Beans

Wok Wednesdays wokking through Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge
by Grace Young

Fabulously delicious!

This is my new favorite way to prepare green beans. I thought the yin yang beans we made back in July 2012 were good (and they are!), but these are even better. The flavor is incredibly intense for having such few ingredients. 

I almost passed on this recipe for I was just not in the mood to make a special trip to the Asian market, and the last time a recipe called for Sichuan preserved vegetable, I only used a small amount and ended up tossing out the rest. I found that different types vary in flavor - a lot.

The canned was extremely salty and not spicy at all; down right nasty in my opinion. If available, I highly recommend the fresh, found in the refrigerated section of your Asian market. How did I know what the bag said? A fellow wokker posted a similar picture on the Wok Wednesday Facebook page. And the sticker on the shelf read pickled vegetable. The canned ingredient reads mustard stem, where the bagged reads pickled radish. The bagged, if not the correct ingredient, was great in this dish!

As with all stir-fries, your ingredients need to be as dry as possible before cooking to avoid hot splatters of oil. This recipe requires the green beans to be bone-dry before starting; I rinsed my beans a couple of hours before, gave them a spin in the salad spinner, and allowed them to continue to air dry in the perforated bowl of the salad spinner on the counter until it was time to prepare dinner.

Dry stir-frying is different from our usual way of stir-frying. Here we cook the beans at a lower temperature and for a longer period of time to intensify the flavor. The beans are tossed in the wok and then left undisturbed for one minute to brown and caramelize - this is repeated five to six times until most of the beans have some color to them.

 The bone-dry beans. :)

 Mise en place.

Bowl 1:  Green beans

Bowl 2:  Salt

Bowl 3:  Oil

Bowl 4:  Ginger

Bowl 5:  Pork

Bowl 6:  Preserved vegetable

Bowl 7:  Sugar

Bowl 8:  Soy sauce

The beans after being "dry-fried" are removed from the wok and put aside. You then stir-fry the ginger and pork before returning the beans to the wok, along with the preserved vegetable, sugar, and soy sauce.

 The most delicious green beans you ever had, await you.

 Those orange-ish looking squares are the preserved vegetable. So delicious..

We are asked not to post the recipes here on our blog. If you would like the recipe, you will find it on page 233 of Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge, which you can purchase at your local bookstore or find it at your local library. I highly recommend purchasing the book - you won't be disappointed. 

 

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