While looking for more recipes that use Sichuan peppercorns, I came across several recipes for a green bean dish. Despite not having all the required ingredients, I found that I could make a tasty dish with a few substitutions. While my Sichuan Green Beans recipe is not totally authentic (no pickled mustard plant for one thing), it is a fresh and tasty quick side. It can even be a main dish when served with a starch, like rice.
If you are serving it as a main dish, you may want to serve it with rice and increase the amount of ground meat and sauce used. The sauce is just three components: wine, soy sauce, and sugar. The wine often used is Shaoxing wine. While a cooking wine version can be purchased at some Asian markets and on the internet, I did not have any, nor did I have the common substitutes of dry sherry or other fortified wine. I ended up using mirin, a Japanese rice wine, and loving it in the dish.
This is a great dish to make as a side with my Pork Potstickers. You can use a pound of ground pork between both dishes with this recipe only using 1/4 of a pound and the potstickers using the remaining 3/4 of a pound.
Sichuan Green Beans
Ingredients
- 1 lb. fresh green beans (or long beans or haricots verts)
- 3 Tbsp. oil (canola, vegetable, etc.)
- 2 tsp. Kosher salt
- 2 Tbsp. soy sauce
- 2 Tbsp. Miran or Shaoxing wine
- 1 tsp. sugar
- 1/4 lb. ground pork
- 1 tsp. +/- hot pepper flakes or several dried peppers, to taste
- 1 to 2 cloves garlic, minced or grated
- 1 Tbsp. fresh ginger, minced or grated
- 1 Tsp. whole Sichuan peppercorns
- 1/2 tsp. ground Sichuan peppercorns, to taste
Instructions
- Clean and trim the green beans.
- Mix soy sauce, wine, and sugar in a small bowl and set aside.
- Add 1 to 2 Tbsp. oil to a large skillet or wok and warm over med. high heat
- Add a single layer of green beans to the hot oil and cook over medium heat stirring frequently.
- Add 1 tsp. Kosher salt and cook until the green beans are blistery and somewhat charred, about 5 minutes or so.
- Remove beans from skillet and place on a paper towel-lined dish to drain and set aside.
- Repeat the cooking process with another layer of green beans until the entire pound is cooked.
- Add enough oil so that there is about 1 Tbsp. oil in the skillet/wok.
- Heat the oil on med.-high. When the oil is hot, add the whole peppercorns and fry until the peppercorns turn darker.
- Remove peppercorns.
- Add the ground pork and stir fry until done.
- Remove pork to the dish containing the green beans.
- Add pepper flakes or peppers, garlic, and ginger to the oil.
- Stir fry for several seconds, then place the green beans and pork back into the skillet/wok.
- Pour the premixed sauce over the bean mixture and stir fry until the beans are coated and the sauce has thickened.
- Remove from heat and stir in ground peppercorns.
- Serve hot.
