This dish is known as "Four Season Beans" because it performs equally well in snow, rain and on dry roads. It's best done with Chinese long beans, but can also be done with string beans, which are more common. I had some fine beans, which I think are some sort of relative of string beans that only shows up at weddings and funerals, so I used those and it turned out...uh...fine.
I've mentioned the Chinese "jau yau" technique before, where vegetables are deep fried before stir frying, and people don't normally do this for everyday home cooking, but for this recipe it's a requirement, as the fried, wrinkled beans are a signature of this dish.
Ingredients
- 2 handfuls fine beans
- 1 block tofu
- 1 slice ginger, minced
- 1 chili, sliced
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- Szechuan pepper salt
- 1 tbsp black bean sauce -- You can use store-bought or make your own.
- cooking oil
Method
- We want the tofu as dry as possible, so you can press out the water by placing the tofu in between 2 plates with a weight on top for 30 minutes.
- Crumble the tofu with your hands. This is fun! It doesn't have to be super fine, but no big chunks. If you want to be very thorough, you can squeeze the crumbled tofu in a cheese cloth to get more moisture out, although I didn't.
- Wash and drain the beans.
- Add a copious amount of oil in a wok (just enough to cover the beans). Turn heat to medium high. We're going to "shallow fry" the beans.
- When the oil is hot, add the beans. I usually first throw in one sacrificial bean (it does not have to be a virgin) to test the oil temperature. Beware that it will splatter at first, but settle down as the moisture escapes.
- Fry the beans until they shrink and turn wrinkly.
- Remove the beans and set aside.
- Pour out most of the oil and set aside.
- Add the chili and ginger and fry them for a few seconds until fragrant.
- Add the crumbled tofu and soy sauce.
- Sprinkle Szechuan pepper salt over the crumbled tofu while continuously tossing. The crumbled tofu absorbs a lot of oil, so if it gets too dry, re-add some of the oil we poured out before.
- When the crumbled tofu is nicely toasted and flavoured, add the beans back.
- Add the black bean sauce and toss until everything is evenly coated.
The more traditional version of this uses ground pork instead of tofu. You can try both versions or even a mixture and see what you like.
