fried green beans – Shananigans Blog

Favourite Shananigans Recipes from 2012

We have had a traumatic start to 2013. New Year’s Day dawned fresh and shiny and we celebrated in Duncannon by preparing a farewell meal for Shane who was returning to China later that week. It was a cheerful, happy occasion attended by 13 of my family including my mother, brothers and their children.
Sadly, just two days later, we lost my mother-in-law, a special woman who I paid tribute to in “In Memory of Alice”. Shane had just returned to Beijing, reeling from the loss of his beloved Gran, when Baby Shananigans attempted to make a premature arrival. Shan’s due date is 22nd February and she is holding on for now. We love you dearly Baby Shananigans and are really looking forward to meeting you but we can wait a little while longer. Honest!

As a result of this and a number of other family matters I’ve been preoccupied for the past week and I haven’t had time to write. But I’ve found cooking therapeutic. Tasty, nourishing food is a physical necessity when the going gets rough and I’ve discovered that Chinese spices can awaken senses that are numbed by shock and worry.
During the last few days, I found myself returning to some of my favourite recipes from 2012, accessing them on my iPhone or iPad when out and about so that I could identify the ingredients I needed to rustle up a meal that evening. I have lots of new recipes to share with you as soon as I re-group and some exciting plans to celebrate the Chinese New Year in mid February but meanwhile I thought it would be useful to remind you of the links to the recipes that got the most positive reaction since I started the blog at the end of last July and to which readers return again and again.
Stir-fried beef
Beef recipes are always popular, especially those that are similar to dishes available on Chinese take-away menus but are lighter and fresh-tasting. These dishes have become firm favourites with readers and I love when I hear that you have come up with your own variations. Recently I’ve taken to using bavette of beef in these dishes because it is great value and has a lovely texture. Sirloin and fillet also work well.

Pork cooked many ways
Pork is a staple in Chinese cooking and Chinese cooks have perfected techniques over the centuries for making even the cheapest cuts taste tender and delicious. My most popular pork recipes so far are all inspired by traditional Sichuan or Hunan recipes and variations of them can be found on the menu of the China Sichuan restaurant in Dublin whose chef gave me the fish-fragrant pork recipe below.

Lamb
Lamb dishes are particularly prevalent in Xinjiang province where Shan was born and her family still live. In that far western province of China the influence of the Uighur Muslim community is strong. These two recipes came from Shan and her MaMa and make for simple, satisfying everyday meals.

Lamb rice served in Urumqi, Xinjiang Provicne

Chicken
Shan’s Big Plate chicken is already the stuff of family legend and is the dish she and Shane use to celebrate the Full Moon Festival. Lemon chicken is a more traditional Cantonese dish and the version below is simple, tangy and light.

Seafood
I have had great fun experimenting with giving a Chinese twist to our wonderful Irish seafood. Sichuan Seafood Duncannon Style was included in Goodalls Modern Irish Cookbook, much to my delight. I also stumbled on an interesting way of using Flahavan’s Multi-seed Oatmeal in salt and pepper seafood dishes.

Starters and light supper dishes

Preparing spring rolls — Preparing Spring Rolls

Finger food Chinese style and light supper dishes can be great fun to make at home. Pot-sticker dumplings are strongly associated with celebration of the Chinese New Year where you will find them laid out on every surface ready to be cooked. For our New Year’s lunch in Duncannon I made large quantities of duck pancakes and spring rolls as a starter. They were all gobbled by appreciative adults and children. Noodles symbolise longevity in China and the Dan Dan noodle recipe below is one of those staples that I prepare whenever I need a fix of Sichuan pepper.

Experiments

Apart from learning how to cook some of the better known dishes of China, I’ve also had fun using new and lesser known cuts of meat. Thanks to Pat Whelan of James Whelan Butchers I’ve tried several ways of cooking his wonderful wagyu beef from his herd at Garrentemple, Co. Tipperary. I ended up having my wagyu stew tasted by local celebrity chefs live on The Sue Nunn Show on KCLR during the Savour Kilkenny festival. And with the help of many chefs who are friends on Twitter, especially Tom Walsh of Samphire at the Waterside, Donabate and Niall O’Sullivan of Isabel’s in Dublin, I have discovered some unusual ways to cook pig’s cheeks and short beef ribs (also knows as Jacobs Ladder).

And finally – where it all began

I doubt if I would ever have started this blog if Shan hadn’t chosen a side dish of fried green beans in a Sichuan restaurant on our first night in Beijing last June. That was also the day she and Shane revealed to us that Baby Shananigans was on the way but that’s a whole other story. 🙂
The Sichuan peppercorns exploded in my mouth, the dried facing heaven chillies added heat, the crunchy Sichuan preserved vegetable yai cai added texture and flavour, and of course the magic trinity of garlic, ginger and spring onions provided their subtle notes. Combined they elevated this simple vegetable out of the ordinary. It was in that moment that I decided I wanted to learn and write about Chinese food. I made fried green beans as a side dish at home the other night using the yai cai, Sichuan pepper and dried chillies Shan’s MaMa sent home to me with Shane at Christmas. Comfort food to awaken the senses.
I hope you continue to enjoy the blog during 2013 and thank you for your encouragement and support.
Julie
P.S. Don’t forget you can find a convenient list of equipment and ingredients in Chinese Kitchen Essentials

Old friends, twice cooked pork and fried green beans

I had a special kind of Monday evening tonight. For many years a group of us women friends, mostly busy mothers, met in Marlay Park, Rathfarnham on a Sunday morning for a run and an aerobic workout on the steps of the old house. And every Monday night we would go to an aerobic class in nearby Lamb Doyles with Gladys our wonderful teacher. Well 10 years or more have passed, kids grew up, a lot of us drifted apart. I haven’t seen most of those women in years.
Until tonight that is when Gladys got us all together for one night only as a charity fund-raiser for Crumlin Children’s Hospital – her daughter is running the New York Marathon for them. Even the pressure to get home from town in rush hour traffic and make a quick change into workout gear brought back old familiar feelings, When we walked into that room, shrieking with delight at recognising old faces that hadn’t changed nearly as much as we feared, all we were short of was the leg warmers.
The music came on – “I will survive” inevitably – and with a tear in my eye, muscle memory kicked into action and we were off. Apart from a few moans and groans, and nobody pregnant, it was as if we had never skipped a beat. Gladys didn’t spare us, well she cut back on the leaping about a bit, so we will have some aches and pains tomorrow. It was a bit of magic, a chance to catch up with old friends who are wearing rather well and to marvel at the daughters who turned up, the same age as the ones we used to fret about on our Sunday morning walks, now grown up into gorgeous young adults.
Having undertaken to cook dinner for “the lodger” aka my lovely niece Jodie, I didn’t hang about for coffee afterwards but it was still 9.30 by the time I got home and I was on a high and ravenous. The meal that follows was on the table by 10. Maybe it was the mood but this was one of the tastiest Chinese meals we have had yet. Inspired by the taste, I went onto the internet and my rambling bought me to Bay vs Kitchen, where I found many a great recipe.
I was prompted to try Ching-He Huang’s version of Twice Cooked Pork after seeing her prepare it on Saturday Kitchen Live on BBC1 last Saturday morning and it is included in Exploring China – a Culinary Adventure. It uses pork belly – wu hua rou – 5 layers of heaven – skin, fat, meat, fat, meat. Chin-He was great fun on the programme by the way and you can follow her on twitter @chinghehuang. I rang ahead on the way to Duncannon last Saturday evening and got the last piece of pork belly in Wallace’s SuperValu Wellington Bridge just as they were closing at 7 pm. It’s best to boil the pork the day before you use it – see below.

The green beans are a vegetarian variation of Shan’s recipe for fried green beans which was the very first dish I cooked for the blog. I like this version as you don’t need to have small amounts of minced pork in your fridge to make it. I found it in Fuchsia Dunlop’s Every Grain of Rice. Fuchsia is also on twitter @fuchsiadunlop. The excellent Irish green beans came from P.Ryan in Rush Co. Dublin.

Vegetarian Fried Green Beans — Vegetarian fried green beans

See Chinese Kitchen Essentials for any unusual ingredients you don’t recognise.
Twice Cooked Pork

Fried green beans two ways

Shan’s version of Sichuan fried green bean with minced pork
Ingredients:

250g – 350g green beans
Dried chilli – 1 or 2 pieces depending how spicy you want it to be
50g minced pork
Soy sauce
Salt
Sichuan pepper
Mei Gan Cai – a dried mustard leaf – see: Finding the Secret Ingredients or Sichuanese ya cai
A few cloves of garlic again you can put more if you like it garlicy

Preparation:

Wash beans and use your hand to break them into 1 inch long pieces.
Boil water in a small pot if you wish to have a healthier dish.
Chop garlic and dried chilli into fine pieces.

Cooking:

Pork: put oil in wok and throw 1 tsp of Sichuan pepper in it, when it gets hot and you can smell the pepper then you can use a spade to take out the pepper if you don’t want to eat it accidently later. I usually take the wok to the sink and shovel them out and deal with it later. Then put minced pork in, fry till they are cooked, put a pinch of sugar and a small amount of soy sauce. When the meat looks golden brown, take the pork out and wash the wok and dry it.
Beans: put oil in wok, put chopped chilli and garlic in, when the oil gets hot, basically garlic starts to look brown, throw beans in (healthier version would be that beans are already boiled in the pot and drained, typically 1 minute in the boiling water is enough, the colour of green starts to look crispy green), fry the beans till it gets brown and bits of it almost look like it’s burnt then the beans are ready, see picture below.*
Final step: put cooked pork in and then add 2 table spoon of soy sauce, and some salt, fry a minute or two then it’s ready. I usually just put one in my mouth and check the flavour and if it’s cooked.

The picture below shows the finished dish and you will not have the really dark bits if the dry leafy vegetable is missing.

Take a look at my first attempt to cook this delicious recipe.
*Note: I later learned inside the kitchen of the China Sichuan that the easiest way to get the bubbly brown skin on the green beans is to deep-fry them very quickly in oil in the wok.
Sichuan fried green beans – vegetarian version

Sichuan fried green beans – vegetarian style

Ingredients:

250g – 350g green beans
Dried chilli – 4 to 6 pieces depending how spicy you want it to be (my tastes are getting spicier!)
2 spring onions, white parts only
3 cloves garlic
Piece of ginger, about 3 cms
Soy sauce
2 tbs Tianjn preserved vegetable
Sichuan pepper
Salt
Sesame oil

Preparation:

Wash beans and use your hand to break them into 1 inch long pieces.
Boil water in a small pot and blanch the beans for about a minute. Drain well.
Finely slice the spring onion whites, garlic and ginger.

Cooking:

Heat wok over a high heat, add oil (about 2 tbs), then sizzle the Sichuan pepper and chillies briefly until they begin to darken and release the gorgeous smells.
Add the spring onion, garlic and ginger and stir-fry for a few moments to release their fragrance.
Add the Tianjin preserved vegetable and stir briefly.
Add the blanched beans and stir fry for a minute or two to coat in the spicy oil and brown slightly.
Stir in about a tsp of sesame oil and serve.

Verdict:
Absolutely delicious. I love both versions of this dish. The one with pork makes a simple supper on its own. The vegetarian version is a great side dish for pork or other meats.
If any of the ingredients in this post are unfamiliar check out Chinese Kitchen Essentials elsewhere on this blog.