Szechuan Green Beans

I bought my carbon steel wok at a yard sale in San Francisco in 1986. I was living in the City and getting acquainted with all the glorious ethnic foods you could ever desire, and I was ready to try my hand at stir-fry - or so I thought. My various attempts at it were, well..... pathetic. What went so disastrously wrong? I had no idea how to approach wok cooking, so I acted like I was braising meat; I'd saute one ingredient, then keep adding the next until everything was in there. Wow, can you believe that treating it like a braised dish cooked quickly at high heat created a dish that was somewhere between a failed braise and a lousy stir-fry? The meat was gray, the broccoli was undercooked, the sauce was watery. Sigh. The wok went into deep storage for the next two decades, miraculously surviving several moves.

In the last two years I have started paying attention, reading recipes to understand the completely different structure of steps that a stir-fry requires. Then I dusted off that wok, and got brave. Now I get it; with wok cooking, unlike most Western-style cooking, you cook the ingredients in a certain order, removing them from the pan when they are done, cooking the next item, and then combining them all at the end. That's how you deal with the meat, which needs to be fried, and the broccoli, which needs to be steamed.

This recipe for Szechuan-style green beans comes from the same "best of the best of the best" America's Test Kitchen magazine that the light cheesecake recipe came from. This recipe is outstanding; I've made it three times in two weeks, experimenting with meats (leftover chicken, ground turkey, ground lamb) because the recipe called for 1/4 pound of ground pork, and the ground pork in my freezer is all in 5 pound packages, ready for the next sausage party.

As usual, I have adapted the recipe. As written, the recipe assumes we do not have access to the proper ingredients or tools. I think you should have the option of using either the ingredients commonly available in remote locations OR the traditional Chinese ingredients available to people who live in the city. Then, there is the question of tools. They tell us to use a non-stick skillet at high heat. Good lord. When I read a couple of years ago that the coating on non-stick skillets breaks down into a toxic gas at high temperatures and has actually killed people's pets, I got rid of all my non-stick skillets and started using my cast iron skillets almost exclusively. Think about it; where does that coating go when it gets scraped off while you're using your spatula to serve the eggs? That's right - into your eggs. Oh, I know we're supposed to use a plastic spatula to prevent the scraping. Do you know what happens to plastic at high heat? I know, I know, I'm an insane Berkeley woman, but I still recommend you get rid of the nonstick skillet; cast iron is so great! At the very least, DON'T use it at high temperature. I will now descend from the foodie soapbox and give you the recipe. You can substitute ground lamb or turkey, or leftover chicken for the pork, and faithful reader Demaris tells me she's been making it with tofu for her vegetarian friends for years - it is all dee-lish. Serve it with rice for a one-dish meal.


Szechuan Green Beans

adapted from America's Test Kitchen Best-Ever Recipes

2 TB soy sauce
2 TB water
1 TB Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp corn or tapioca starch
1/4 tsp ground white pepper
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp dry mustard

2 TB high smoke point oil - peanut, sunflower, or safflower
1 lb green beans - (Chinese long beans if you can get them) stem ends trimmed and cut into 2" lengths

1/4 pound ground pork (or lamb or turkey)
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 TB minced fresh ginger

3 scallions (green onions) sliced thin
1 tsp toasted sesame oil

1. In a small bowl, stir together the soy sauce, water, sherry, sugar, starch, white and red peppers, and mustard until the sugar and the lumps dissolve.

2. Heat the oil in a wok or large cast iron skillet over high heat until just smoking. Add the beans and cook, stirring frequently, until crisp tender and the skins are shriveled and blackened in spots, 5-8 minutes. (Reduce heat to medium-high if the beans darken too quickly.) Transfer the beans to a large plate or bowl.

3. Reduce the heat to medium-high and add the pork to the now-empty wok or skillet. Cook, breaking the meat into small pieces, until no pink remains, about 2 minutes. Add the garlic and ginger; cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir the sauce to recombine and add the sauce, along with the beans, to the pan. Toss and cook until the sauce is thickened, 5-10 seconds. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the scallions and sesame oil. Serve immediately.

Notes: For a heartier use as a main course, increase the meat to 1/2 a pound, and add another 1 TB of soy sauce, 1 TB of water, 1 1/2 tsp rice wine/sherry, and another 1/2 tsp tapioca or corn starch.