Dried-fried green beans is one of my favorite side dishes to order in Sichuan restaurants. In contrast to crisp haricot verts or mushy microwaved diner-style beans, Sichuan-style green beans (or Szechuan, if you prefer) are blistered and well-cooked without being bland. With Sichuan peppercorns and dried chillis adding spice and smokiness to the flavor profile, this dish becomes positively addictive.
However, no matter how many times I tried to recreate the dish at home, I ended up either burning the green beans before they got cooked, or dumping some water in order to save the beans, the latter which defeats the purpose of dry-frying. For help, I finally emailed Kian from Red Cook. He said that his method is using a ton of oil and constantly stirring the beans to get them cooked without burning. Almost like deep-frying. No wonder the green beans in restaurants taste so good.
My good-enough-for-publishing recipe in this post can be considered vegetarian, depending on whether you consider dried shrimp meat. (Or maybe I’m just turning incredibly Chinese: “Oh, you don’t eat meat? Don’t worry…it’s just chicken.”) Some versions use minced pork in addition to dried shrimp, and some avoid both. For dried shrimp, make sure to get the kind that’s bigger, pinkish, and more expensive, not the cheap itty bitty gray ones.
Sichuan preserved vegetable (mustard root pickled in salt and chillis) can usually be found in Chinatown supermarkets, in either cans or individual packages. Just rinse in cold water and finely chop for this dish.
Some recipes I found also eschew the dried red chills and Sichuan peppercorn, but I find the extra spice adds a needed smoky dimension to the final dish. I also use a little chilli bean sauce at the end to add a bit of moisture back in, although soy sauce also works well.
And remember to dry your green beans well before cooking. Nothing ruins an appetite like splotchy painful burn marks on your arms from splattering oil.
Bonus Olympic Update: A friend went to a US vs. China basketball game and was able to photograph the Bushes in the stands. Test your politician ID skillz in this How Many World Leaders Do You Recognize? photo.
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Sichuan Dry-Fried Green Beans
Serves 4 as part of a multi-course meal, or 2 as a main dish
- 3/4 pound green beans
- 1/2 cup peanut or vegetable oil
- 2 tablespoons dried shrimp, finely chopped
- 2 tablespoons Sichuan preserved vegetable (optional), finely chopped
- 5 or 6 dried red chillis
- 1/4 teaspoon ground Sichuan pepper
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 1 teaspoon minced or grated ginger
- 3 scallions, white parts chopped
Sauce:
- 1/2 tablespoon Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
- 1/2 tablespoon chili bean sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
- Rinse the green beans and dry them very well. (Even a small amount of water will cause oil in the wok to splatter.) Cut the beans into 2-inch lengths.
- Prepare the sauce: stir together the sherry, chili bean sauce, sesame oil, and sugar until the sugar is dissolved. Set aside. Heat a large wok or skillet over medium-high heat. Add the oil and swirl to coat the sides. Add green beans and stir-fry, keeping the beans constantly moving, for about 7 minutes, or until the outsides begin to blister and the beans are wilted. Turn off the heat, remove the green beans and set them aside to drain on a plate lined with paper towels.
- Remove all but 1 tablespoon of oil and reheat the wok. Add dried shrimp, Sichuan preserved vegetable, red chilis, garlic, ginger, and scallions; cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Sprinkle the salt over the beans and stir to combine, adjusting the seasoning if necessary. Transfer to a serving plate and serve while hot.
Recipe updated March 16, 2011.
I love this dish! You can never go wrong with oil-blanching green beans (and eggplant too!). Are the preserved vegetables sweet or more salty?
Diana, Glad my tip worked for you. Great recipe! I like the idea of adding chili bean paste to the sauce. I must try that next time I make the dish.
I always order this dish at Chinese restaurants but have never attempted to make it myself. Thanks for a great recipe. I’m going to attempt it.
dp – They’re a bit salty, having been pickled in salty water. They definitely add a nice texture to the overall dish.
This is one of my favorite dishes in CHina as well… I am now completely addicted to it!
Kian – Yeah, I never realized it was the lack of oil that was the problem. Thanks again!
Beautiful. No time to nip to Chinatown for “haam shun tsoi” (do you like my improvised ping yum?) but I just remembered I have some green beans in my crisper bin. Will try this method tonight, maybe with some ground pork.
Thanks for the recipe. I love green beans made Chinese-style.
hey! it’s been a while since i visited. sorry abt tht. this is a dish my mum likes to make! and guess what, my dad’s going these bean babies out front and they are fat and ready to be cooked i reckon roundabout early next week. i’m excited!
I just found your website thanks to an article on Blogher.com and was super-excited to see this post and recipe. This dish was one of my favorites when my husband and I visited China last year and this year. We had our first taste at a restaurant in Urumqi and ordered it as often as we could on our overland trip. I became addicted to the numbing and tingle of Sichuan peppercorn. Brings back good eating memories!
Thanks for this method. I changed pretty much everything else because I didn’t have it on hand but the beans were -perfect-. This is a keeper. The sugar was a great touch, too–I always get so put off by the over-sweetness of Asian food in the US that I forget that a little sugar is a good thing.
Michele – Yeah, I’ve found that a lot of traditional Chinese recipes call for a sprinkle of sugar. Definitely elevates the taste, if used in moderation.
You have so great chinese receipes. As I used to live in China for 5 years I had one favourite dish and search for the receipe. I think the translated chinese name is “beef cooked in water”. (On the menu the name was beef Sichuan style) It is sliced beef without bones cooked in a spicy broth and often served over iceberg lettuce. The restaurant where I ate this, also had this green bean dish, so I hope you can help me.
I learned to make this a bit different from a friend that is from Chengdu.
Heat the wok on high and dry fry the beans just until small black blisters appear. remove beans from heat. Add liberal amount of peanut oil and heat to smoking, then added dried chili. Fry chilis until they start to turn light brown. Remove chilis and hold. THen add beans back to oil and fry until hot add back chilis and fry 30 seconds. remove from heat and season with kosher salt. enjoy. Also works well with asparagus.
I would use Ya cai (芽菜） instead of Zha cai (榨菜） which is what you appear to be using for preserved vegetable. They have a different taste and Ya cai is much more pungent.
Ya cai, though, is much more difficult to find outside China while Zha cai is ubiquitous. I’ve seen it in giant stores in USA, though, like 金门超市 in Quincy (Boston area).
It’s been a while since I went grocery shopping in Quincy (it’s where I grew up). Though I’m not surprised ya cai is easy to find there…it has become a satellite 2nd Chinatown of Boston.
I will have to try this recipe. Looks delicious!
i’ve had a hard time finding Ya Cai in the New York City area. Been using Tainjin Preserved vegetable in dishes like dan dan noodles. WHen you found it in Boston was it labelled Ya Cai? Is Quincy a supermarket in the boston area or are you referring to a town?
Any suggestion for finding it here?
much thanks
Quincy is a town in the greater Boston area that has the largest Chinese supermarket in Massachusetts. It is called 金門超市超 (Pinyin: Jin1 men2 chao1 shi4, Official English name is Kam Man Food, after the Cantonese pronounciation). The company is actually from New York. I am almost dead sure there has to be one in Manhattan or Flushing though I’m not sure where.
The most well-known brand of commercially-packaged Ya cai is probably 碎米芽菜 (Sui mi ya cai) which is made in Sichuan. That is available at least in the Boston one and hidden deep in the pickled vegetable aisle in the bottom shelves near the floor. You should look for a small sealed package like this:
http://www.jiaoyou.com/attachments/2006/05/15/66892549544691f850c35f.jpg
I just made this dish according to your recipe in Budapest, Hungary. I did’t have any pickled vegetables, nevertheless, the dish turned out perfect. It’s important not to overcook the beans! I should go to a Chinese market one of these days…:o)
We always ate the pork version (you can have it with fish, too) and called it “Water Boiled Pork”
I found a recipe here, but I haven’t tried it yet. it doesn’t seem like enough oil!
http://www.galaxylink.com.hk/~john/food/cooking/sichuan/suizhurou.html
This one looks right in the pictures:
http://allrecipes.com/Cook/11828683/BlogEntry.aspx?postid=152656
It’s been four months since I moved outta China (to Germany, in fact) and I miss it so much!
Do you think this dish is freezable?
Mar – I would advise against it. The shallow-frying means the green beans are meant to be eaten while still fresh and crispy, and freezing would make the dish mushy. It would be like freezing cooked french fries or fried chicken.
I’m a little confused as the instructions mention sherry and mushrooms and that’s not in the ingredient list… And when exactly does the “sauce” that we prepare in the beginning get added? Can someone enlighten me?
Hi there. Thanks for pointing this out! I must have not updated the ingredient list when I updated the recipe last month. It’s all fixed now. Let me know if you have any other questions!
This is a great dish. All your pictures look delicious. is this the same as the “ants on a log” dish? It looks really similar but calls for small amount of minced pork.
Hi Sandra – "Ants climbing a tree" is a different dish, a Sichuan dish that has minced pork and sauce over bean thread noodles. It’s true that lot of Chinese dishes use minced pork for flavoring. If you like ants climbing a tree, I’m sure you’ll also like these green beans!
I would love to have a recipe for brocoli as it is cooked for Dim Sum. The sauce is always so good but I can never replicate it myself.