Dry-Fried Sichuanese Green Beans! (干煸四季豆）

I learned how to make one of my favorite Chinese dishes the other day, at a team-building event I helped organize for work. Some of my co-workers and I joined Chef Mike at the Chinese Cooking Workshop here in Shanghai and tried our hands at a few simple wok dishes. It was a fun (and tasty!) way to get to know each other in a different context :)

Spicy, salty, crunchy and simply awesome!

Ingredients:
Green Beans
Ground Pork
Minced Garlic
Minced Ginger
Pepper Powder
Sugar
Salt
Light Soy Sauce
Dark Soy Sauce
Dried Red Peppers
Vegetable Oil (A LOT of it!!)

So the first big surprise (aka shouldn't have been such a big surprise, hello again, denial!) was that the green beans, once washed and chopped, are actually deep-fried in oil. HA! The big secret to their deliciousness...

The wok was full of really hot oil, and the green beans were tossed right in creating a lot of very-hot-oil-splatter which we shielded ourselves from by holding a metal mesh over the top of the wok.

ASIDE:
(I am not sure how I feel about this deep-frying... it is delicious and I have heard that when something gets deep-fried for a short amount of time in really hot oil it's not actually that bad for you, because it ends up not absorbing so much of the oil... (denial again?!) But still, Chef Mike said we could boil or steam the green beans instead but then guaranteed the flavor and texture would not be the same, aka not as delicious!)

The green beans were in the oil for about 30-40 seconds before being removed and drained. Then the wok went right back on the hot burner with just a bit of oil and we added, in rapid succession:
minced garlic
minced ginger
ground pork
pepper powder
dried red pepper
about 1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of sugar
2 teaspoons light soy sauce
1 teaspoon dark soy sauce

This creates a burning smoke that will cause sneezes and tears in anyone around you but somehow, due to the miracles of air circulation around the actual wok, never actually hurt the cook! (I suggest clearing the kitchen of children, pets and other loved ones for this!)

((I was surprised Mike didn't use the Sichuan peppercorns in his recipe; I will definitely toss some in when I try this at home. I just love their numbing pepperiness!))

Once the pork was almost cooked through, the green beans were tossed back into the wok to pick up all the flavors.

It was ABSOLUTELY delicious. Salty, spicy, lovely color and great texture! Hmmm!

Quick Chinese-Style Meal!

Chinese celery and dry tofu, stir-fried with numbing Sichuanese peppercorns.

I am not one to venture into the realms of Chinese cooking very often, because I have a husband who does that better than me... but once in a while I give it a shot!

I had bought some bags of dry tofu in the convenience store. They come vacuum-packed and ready to eat, and are not really "dry" but rather just firmer and dryer than regular tofu. For this reason they can keep for a pretty long time, and it is possible to slice this kind of tofu pretty thin to use in stir-fries, without it falling apart.

This is what the dry tofu looks like, vacuum-packed and ready to eat!

Since my husband made some dinner the other day, we had some left-over Chinese celery I don't normally cook with.

I chopped up the celery and tossed it in a wok with some oil, garlic, salt, and Sichuanese peppercorns. Then I added the dried tofu.

The result was a pleasantly spicy dish, since the mild celery did a lot to offset the peppers.

It took all of 10min to prepare, so I was a happy camper!