Asian Green Beans

[Stinky The Clown]

The soopermarket had some very nice looking green beans today. I was planning to make the pad Thai I posted in a different thread, but the green beans made me want to experiment. We've always loved the garlicky, highly caramelized ones served in Asian restaurants.

Herewith our endeavors tonight - a combining of several recipes found in books and online, and out own sensibilities of things. All that sounds kinda high minded. These are simple and easy.

Green beans, tipped, and cut into 1-1/2 inch pieces. I suppose you could also cut them longer, as they are sometimes served in restaurants. Let's say 6 or so good handfuls of beans.

4 to 6 cloves garlic ...... or more. Who's counting? :shrug:

And equal volume of ginger.

Very finely chop both the ginger and the garlic.

Green onions, sliced into very fine disks. Just the white and very pale green parts, not the tops.

A couple of tablespoons each of soy sauce and white vinegar.

A few tablespoons of peanut (or any high smoke point) oil.

Use as little oil as possible. I started with a tablespoon, but had to add a second a bit later.

Add the oil to a very hot wok. You want the oil right at the smoke point. Hot, hot hot. Make sure the green beans a VERY dry. I put in the salad spinner. If not, they're gonna spatter REALLY bad.. Fry the beans until they get well caramelized and puckery. Maybe 4 or 5 minutes, turning them every 30 seconds or so. Remove the beans and hold hot.

Add the garlic and ginger and fry it for maybe 10 or 15 seconds. Add the green onions and let them get caramelized, too. Maybe another 20 or 30 seconds.

Add the soy sauce and the vinegar. Let it reduce by maybe half or a bit more.

Add back the green beans and toss them get them hot again and to coat them fully.

That's it.

These were REALLY good. Sparkly added some chili flakes to the liquid before we added it. Turns out that was too hot for her. But I liked the heat. So ... red chili flakes are optional.

(edit to get rid of some oddities in the font ..... whatever the hell caused *that*)

[Gormy Cuss]

1. This dish is great with long beans

They're not always available but they hold up to the deep frying much better than Western green beans. I make them with green beans if I have the urge because it's a great dish.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

2. You got it

The trick is dry-frying them as long as you have to. People freak out when the discoloration starts, but, man, they are so good. I never cut the beans, by the way, since I like them long. Try the same thing with eggplant, thoroughly dried eggplant chunks. It's nice. Although I don't cook the green onions, just use them as garnish. But the idea of slightly carmelizing them sounds very good.

Ever fix a southern green bean recipe that calls for cooking the beans for a couple of hours? I fixed it once, and I think it was surprisingly good, but I have no idea where that recipe is now.

I'm sure the Internet tubes has one..................................

[Stinky The Clown]

4. Southern green beans ......

.... or Southern greens, for that matter. Not my cup of tea.

I lived for a number of years in the South and learned how to make greens and green beans. Essentially, they're cooked to near mush and highly seasoned with meat fat. No doubt but that they're tasty. They are. Delicious, in fact.

I just don't get it.

So much of the nutrition seems to get cooked out and their natural flavor gets replaced by a cured meat flavor.

I will never forget a recipe that was given to me by a friend when I lived in Chattanooga. It was for poke salad. (Poke weed ... edible when young, poisonous when mature).

Gather a brown paper bag of poke weed.

Cut off all the stems and save just the leaves.

Soak the leaves in fresh water overnight.

Throw away the water and cook them in fresh water for 30 minutes.

Throw away the water. Add more water. Cook for 30 minutes.

Throw away the water. Add more water. Cook for another 30 minutes.

90 minutes of cooking for a green no tougher than spinach.

Three changes of water.

And *then* ... the final cooking.

Chop up and fry up some bacon or fat back.

Add the cooked greens and fry for 10 minutes

Serve.



:)

[Warpy]

3. That's nearly the classic preparation

which is finished off with some "pickled vegetable" that comes in a brown crock if you've got a good Chinese grocery nearby. I don't find it has a whole lot of flavor, so I omit it.

I've found long beans caramelize just a little better than our string beans do, but you can certainly substitute ours for them if you can't get the long ones.