Sichuan style fried green beans and mange tout

Sichuan stir fried green beans and mange tout with minced pork

You may have heard of the traditional sichuan dry fried green beans dish. This is a very loose take on that which I adapted due to lack of the correct ingredients and the patience to properly dry fry (this is where you use less oil than traditional frying, but cook the beans for longer until they are wilted and almost a bit charred)! Yet it turned out really tasty and so I thought I’d share the recipe.

Serves 2

Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

• About 2 tablespoons of oil

• 250g green beans

• 250g mange tout

• 200g minced pork

• ½ tsp salt

• 1 tsp whole Sichuan peppercorns

• 1 tbsp minced garlic

• 1 tsp minced ginger

• 6 dried chillies

  Sauce

• 2 tbsp Shaoxing wine

• 1 tbsp soy sauce

• 1 tsp sugar

Instructions

1. Mix the sauce ingredients together in a small bowl and set aside.

2. Heat the oil in a wok over medium to high heat and once hot add the green beans (we’ll add the mange tout a bit later. As they’re so thin they don’t need as long to cook). Stir the beans now and again and after about 5 minutes add in the mange tout and cook for a further approx. 5 minutes. You should find the beans and mangetout take on a slightly wilted look and start to get some brown colour on them. Once they look like this, remove them to a plate.

3. Add a little drizzle ore oil and add the Sichuan peppercorns. You’ll smell their fragrance release quite quickly and they will start to darken. Before they start to burn, remove the peppercorns and discard.

4. Add the mince pork and about half the salt and fry until browned.

5. Add the dried chilli peppers, garlic and ginger and stir for a minute or so.

6. Add back the veggies along with the sauce and mix. Cook for a further minute or so.

7. Serve hot on top of rice.