I love Chinese food. I like it all, including Westernized dishes, and more traditional Chinese food.
I love eating it at restaurants, and I love experimenting with cooking it at home.
The problem with cooking it at home is that sometimes it can be hard to find authentic ingredients. I find this especially true now that I live in a smaller city with a smaller Asian population.
There are a few small Asian markets around, but they are definitely not the Asian super-stores that I am used to at home.
The good news about these Spicy Szechuan Green Beans is that the ingredients are not super exotic. In fact, you should be able to find most of the ingredients in any old grocery store.
Only a couple might require a trip to an Asian market, but a large, well-stocked grocery store with an International aisle will likely carry them too.
This recipe centers around green beans. A whole pound of them. Trim the ends off before throwing them in the pan.
Ground turkey adds protein without adding a ton of extra fat. Ground pork can also be used. But I don't find it makes a huge flavor difference, and turkey is what I usually have on hand.
The other ingredients are where the flavor comes from. You've got your standard garlic and ginger and scallions.
Also, a few sauces and spices that are not pictured: soy sauce, sugar, white pepper, chili flakes, and mustard powder. Some corn starch for thickening.
The ones that you might have a tiny bit of trouble finding are Chinese cooking wine and sesame oil. Again, most well-stocked grocery stores should have these. If not, you can use dry sherry in place of the cooking wine. There really is no substitute for sesame oil, so let's hope your store has it.
The beans are stir-fried in a HOT wok or skillet. Warning: it's about to get smoky in here! Think of it as a great way to test your smoke detector. You want the beans to get nice and blackened on the outside, but still, be crisp...
Like this. Move them to a plate and let them hang out while you cook up the meat and the sauce (which only takes a couple of minutes).
The whole dish takes at the very most, 15 minutes to cook and that's including time for the pan to heat up. So before you start, make sure you start cooking some rice or noodles to serve these delicious morsels of spicy beany goodness over.
There you have it. Everything you need for a meal in one bowl: veggies, meat, and starch.
Spicy Szechuan Green Beans Nutrition Notes:
Serve with white or brown rice to make a complete meal.
Spicy Szechuan Green Beans
Ingredients
- 2 Tablespoons water
- 2 Tablespoons low sodium soy sauce (Use Tamari if you want this recipe to be Gluten Free)
- 1 Tablespoon Chinese cooking wine
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- ½ teaspoon corn starch
- ¼ teaspoon white pepper
- ¼ teaspoon red chili flakes
- ¼ teaspoon dry mustard
- 2 Tablespoons canola oil
- 1 pound green beans, ends trimmed
- ½ pound ground turkey
- 3 cloves garlic minced or pressed
- 1 Tablespoon grated fresh ginger
- 3 scallions, sliced thin
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
Instructions
- Stir together the water, soy sauce, cooking wine, sugar, corn starch, white pepper, chili flakes and dry mustard together in a small bowl. Set aside.
- Heat the oil over high heat in a 12" skillet or wok until just smoking. Add beans. Cook, stirring often until beans are spotty black but still crisp, 5-8 minutes. If beans are burning, turn heat to medium high. Transfer beans to a large plate.
- Reduce heat to medium high. Add turkey to skillet, breaking meat apart with spoon and cook until no longer pink, 2 minutes. Add garlic and ginger and cook until fragrant, 30 seconds. Stir sauce again, then add it to the skillet, stirring constantly until slightly thickened, 30 seconds. Remove pan from heat. Stir in the beans, scallions and sesame oil. Serve over Chinese noodles or rice.
Nutrition
Nutrition Disclaimer: I try my best to make sure the nutrition information I provide is accurate to provide you with the best information possible. However, due to ingredient discrepancies and other factors, the above nutrition information should be considered an estimation only.
Anna
looks delish! i always use pork mince, but dan complains about the fattiness of it, even though it never bothers me, but turkey is a great idea.
Carissa
Try turkey! It works really well. I definitely don't notice much of a difference at all. PS. Our husbands must be polar opposites, mine usually only complains when something is not fatty enough (like when I use turkey instead of pork).