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Asian Green Beans

2024-1-21

I’ve been making this recipe for years now, but never got around to publishing it because I couldn’t be bothered to measure the ingredients that go into the sauce. Well I’ve measured them now, so you’re in for a treat because these are the most delicious green beans I’ve ever eaten.

The origin of the recipe was me experimenting with trying to recreate a dish I ate at a Chinese restaurant. Along the way I stumbled into this recipe. It doesn’t in any way resemble the dish I set out to recreate, cause once I tried this I lost all motivation to cook green beans any other way. I’ve generically titled the recipe “Asian” because they’re all ingredients that you should be able to get at an East-Asian supermarket, but otherwise doesn’t resemble any dish from a specific cuisine. My mental model is that it’s something like a Thai take on Chinese soy-ginger sauce on green beans, but I don't really know, I'm a guy who combines random ingredients in the kitchen.

tl;dr

  1. Cook rice
  2. Make lime soy-ginger sauce
  3. Deep-fry green beans
  4. Coat green beans in sauce; serve over rice

Prep

Rinse the green beans and trim the ends so they’re ready for cooking.

Cook Jasmine rice in the background so it will be ready after you’ve done the rest of the steps.

Lime soy-ginger Sauce

Combine in a bowl:

  • 1 cup soy sauce
  • 3 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice Roughly 3 limes
  • 2–3 tbsp ginger, finely chopped Roughly 2 lobes
  • 1 tbsp sesame oil
  • 1 tbsp sugar (optional)
  • 1 tbsp hot pepper flakes (optional) Pepper flakes, hot pepper paste, whatever. I’ve tried various things from the Asian supermarket and have never been disappointed.

This will make enough for 4 people, give or take. Cut in third if cooking for 1–2 people. NB: one third of 1 tbsp is 1 tsp Personally I never measure any of this stuff. My method is to combine everything in the bowl, taste, then adjust accordingly.

Rationale: The lime is there to balance out the soy sauce. The ginger adds an interesting, fresh flavor. The sugar and spicy elements can be ommitted if necessary, but you will lose a dimension. If you omit the spicy, then I recommend also ommitting the sugar since the sauce isn’t supposed to taste sweet.

Deep-fry green beans

  1. Find a wide pan with decently tall walls (to minimize splatter)
  2. Add enough vegetable oil so that green beans can float Never more than ½ the sidewall height of the pan, since accidentally spilled hot oil is incredibly dangerous
  3. Heat oil to 350–390°F I don’t normally use a thermometer and it always comes out good, so I don’t think the exact temperature matters. To know when the oil is hot enough you can wait until it starts dancing around, followed by a slight oil aroma, then you can put in a single test green bean and you should see it sizzle within a few seconds.
  4. Cook beans in batches for 30–60 seconds (each batch = roughly 1 or 2 handfuls)
  5. After each batch is cooked, remove green beans with a tong and place in strainer to let excess oil drain
  6. After removing each batch, wait for the oil to stop sizzling and get back up to temperature
  7. Reminder: When you put in the last batch, turn off the heat

How long to cook the beans is a matter of taste. I err towards 30 seconds, since I like the green beans to still taste like fresh green beans on the inside. The beans are undercooked if they don’t come out wrinkled. The beans are fully cooked through if they sound paper-y (hard to describe but you’ll know it when you hear it) when you jiggle the strainer with the cooked beans. I like my beans cooked somewhere in-between the two.

Saftey note: you probably already know that deep-frying is inherently dangerous. Go watch a safety video if you’ve never done it before. Before turning on the heat, locate the matching pan lid and have it ready in case of fire. Complete all prep work before turning on the heat, since you must never take your eyes off the pan while the heat is on. If the oil begins to show any sign of smoke, turn off the heat immediately. Having said all that, many people are irrationally fearful of deep frying. Don’t be scared, just treat it with respect.

Clean up: As a suggestion, you can strain the used oil, store it in a jar, then re-use it at least one more time. Not that generic vegetable oil is expensive, but waste not want not.

Serving

  1. Add rice to plate
  2. Use tongs to dunk handful of green beans in sauce, mix a little
  3. Put green beans on top of rice
  4. After enough green beans have been added, use a spoon to drizzle a little more sauce over rice.
  5. Serve while hot if possible

As a suggestion, this dish pairs well with cantaloupe or another sweet fruit. I consider it a complete meal to eat a pound of green beans over rice—it leaves me feeling completely satiated yet energetic. Not surprisingly it also works great as a side dish if you can’t make the mental leap to seeing green beans as a meal.

Ingredient list

  • Green beans, at least ½ pound per person
  • Jasmine rice
  • Vegetable oil I buy a generic blend of vegetable oil since it is cheap and neutral tasting. I can’t imagine using a nicer oil would hurt though.
  • Soy sauce
  • 3 limes
  • Fresh ginger root
  • Sesame oil
  • Sugar (optional)
  • Hot pepper flakes (optional)