Szechuan Dry-Fried Beans And Pork
OK, so this doesn’t SOUND amazing I know. But a simple stir fry recipe that is flavoursome and easy, adaptable if you need to make it vegetarian and has a mild kick of chilli that won’t scare the children off, was a good place to start! I am sure you have seen it in restaurants, and it is often served as a side dish, but we eat it as a main at home, with other dishes of egg or tofu, more veggies and rice. It doesn’t involve a whole lot of oil for frying (although I think historically it did involve deep frying the beans – which I don’t do! 😬). You can always add some pickled mustard greens to add something extra to the dish too.
Equipment
- Heavy based frying pan cast iron probably best
Ingredients
- 300 g green beans or snake beans if you prefer
- 200-250 g pork mince or beef mince can be used.
- ½ brown onion chopped
- 2 garlic cloves finely chopped
- 2 cm fresh ginger minced (I use microplane) but also can be finely chopped
- 2 dried chillies or chilli flakes
- 2-3 tbsp oil Peanut, vegetable or rice bran
- 1 ½ tbsp dark soy sauce
- 1 tbsp shao xing wine
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp sesame oil
See below to purchase ingredients
Instructions
- Wash and trim the beans and chop to 4-5 cm length pieces. Add 1 1/2 tbsp oil and a sprinkle of salt in your heavy based frying pan or cast iron pan until super hot and smoking. Add your beans and spread them out over the base of the pan and leave for a minute, then give them a stir then leave for another minute. Repeat this – the idea being that your beans should get slightly charred but not burnt and floppy. It should only take 2-3 minutes. Remove into a bowl.
- Turn the heat down slightly and add remaining oil. Add onions, garlic, ginger and chillies and cook until onions are golden colour. NB. You don’t need to add chillies if you don’t like it hot. Or if you like it hot, but your family doesn’t, you can always add some chilli sauce on your dish at the table.Add your pork and cook, breaking it up as much as you can. Then add your soy, shao xing wine, sugar and sesame oil. Cook for another 30 seconds to a minute and then serve immediately with rice. I would chop up some pickled mustard greens on top to cut the spice a little.
