seeking spicy flavours
a spin on a classic Hunan dish: stir-fried green beans with pork recipe 🌶️
As I currently live in Rome, my diet for the most part consists of Mediterranean dishes, not necessarily by choice. I try to take advantage of the fact that the produce sold at the food markets is local and better quality than I was used to in Glasgow. Despite that, I often seek non-Italian flavours and I miss the food that I cooked back in Scotland.
This recipe is not authentic (whatever that would mean), and it’s a spin on a classic stir-fried pork with green beans dish from Hunan province in southern China.
With my unique circumstance, I substituted some of the ingredients:
Shaoxing wine (rice wine) became white wine
Pickled long beans were replaced by standard green beans
Doubanjiang (spicy bean sauce) was not involved, but chilli oil was
Stir-fried green beans with minced pork and a lot of chilli
Serves: 2
Ingredients:
500g ground pork
300g green beans
garlic (around 4 cloves)
1 small white onion
2 fresh chilis
10 small dried chilli
a splash of light soy sauce
oyster sauce (around 4 tablespoons)
a splash of white wine
3 tablespoons of chilli oil
1 teaspoon of black pepper
sea salt
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil for stir-frying
Method:
Start with chopping green beans into small pieces. I find it easier to snip the tip of the stem end with kitchen shears and then line a few beans on a chopping board, and using a sharp knife cut the beans at the same time.
Next, mince the garlic, dice the white onion, and red chillies. In a mortar, place the dry chillies and pound until they turn into a powder.
Time to cook. Preheat the oil in a wok or a frying pan over high heat. Once the pan is hot, add white onion and cook for around 2 minutes. Then add pork and stir fry until slightly crisp, add garlic, and fresh and dried red chillis. Add white wine to deglaze the pan. Next, season with oyster sauce, soy sauce, salt, and black pepper and stir to combine.
Add the cut green beans and cook until they soften (you might need to turn down the heat to medium). Season with more oyster sauce, and salt and add more chilli oil if needed.
Serve the dish with white rice.