There’s no higher strategy to showcase new beans than with this easy Chinese preparation. I exploit a mixture of purple beans, yellow wax beans, and common inexperienced beans, picked on the peak of tenderness, then blanched rapidly and seasoned with an fragrant ginger soy sauce. Makes a stupendous little appetizer or aspect.
Blanching is a standard Chinese preparation to prepare dinner tender greens and greens like broccoli/gailan, asparagus, choy sum, or inexperienced beans. You dip the ingredient in boiling water for a short interval (typically simply 30 seconds) till cooked al dente, drain or shock in ice water, then serve with a easy sauce of soy sauce and oil.
Sometimes, you’ll see aromatics like thinly slivered ginger, scallions, or chiles laid as a garnish on the elements. Right earlier than serving, a ladleful of smoking sizzling oil is poured on prime, releasing all of the scrumptious aromas in a single vigorous sizzle— this can be a methodology known as jiao you (浇油), “dashing oil.”
For this dish, I add the ginger on to a sauce pan and let it frizzle for some time so that you just get all these flavors within the sauce itself.
Chef suggestions for Chinese blanched dishes or liang cai:
- Use the most tender and delicate greens at their peak taste and freshness.
- When blanching, watch out to not overcook the vegetable. Submerge it rapidly in chilly water to halt the cooking course of and seize the vivid colour within the pot. The cooking time ought to be simply lengthy sufficient to deliver out the vegetable’s most vibrant colour and optimum texture.
- Mix the seasonings in a separate bowl and style it to regulate the flavors till excellent. Consider the assorted methods so as to add it, both drizzling over the elements (淋味 lin wei), tossing to coat (拌味 ban wei), or serving on the aspect as a dip (沾味 zhan wei).
- Don’t make blanched dishes too far upfront, as they may lose their vibrancy and taste— you need to serve it instantly after it’s dressed.
- Chinese cooks normally add a little bit of oil to the boiling water in order that the ingredient will get coated with a few of it while you scoop it out— provides to the flavour and provides it a stupendous gleam and shine.
Notes
*I add an non-obligatory quantity of sand ginger (沙姜 sha jiang) to the soy sauce. Sand ginger is a sort of rhizome that appears like galangal, used within the southern coastal provinces of China and southeast Asia. In China, we regularly grated the contemporary root for juice, however most Asian supermarkets within the U.S. promote sand ginger as a powder. It is paler in colour than floor ginger, and only a pinch in steamed dishes and appetizers provides intriguing taste—greatest described as a musky, peppery savoriness with a barely piney aroma.
Variation
In the spring, I like to recommend utilizing younger asparagus as an alternative of inexperienced beans; Cantonese cooks eagerly await the arrival of the primary asparagus after the chilly, with its delicate, pencil-thin stalks and crisp, candy taste. Blanch them for 30-40 seconds till vibrant inexperienced, then put together as under.
Find recipes like this one and extra in my new cookbook, The Vegan Chinese Kitchen.
📖 Recipe
Blanched purple beans with fragrant ginger soy sauce 姜蓉豆角
Tender, delicate inexperienced beans seasoned with a easy and fragrant Cantonese soy sauce with ginger and sesame oil. A superbly understated Chinese dish that works greatest as a chilly appetizer or starter.
- Prep Time: 10
- Cook Time: 5
- Total Time: quarter-hour
- Yield: 4 1x
- Category: Appetizer
- Method: Blanch
- Cuisine: Chinese
- Diet: Vegan
Ingredients
Scale
- 10 ounces (280 grams) slender purple beans, yellow wax beans, or inexperienced beans, ends trimmed
- 1 ½ tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
- 2 tablespoons minced ginger
For the sauce:
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon Shaoxing cooking wine, or water
- ½ teaspoon sugar
- ¼ teaspoon MSG, or ½ teaspoon mushroom bouillon powder
- ½ teaspoon floor sand ginger (non-obligatory)*
- ¼ teaspoon floor white pepper
- ½ teaspoon sesame oil
- Fresh pink chile, thinly sliced, for garnish
Instructions
- Prepare a bowl of ice water. Bring a big pot of water to a boil, then add a beneficiant quantity of salt and drizzle in ½ tablespoon of the oil. Blanch the inexperienced beans for 50 to 60 seconds, till they flip a vivid colour and are crisp-tender. Transfer instantly to the ice water to cease the cooking course of and protect colour and crispness. Drain the beans effectively and pat dry with a clear towel. Arrange the beans in a neat stack on a serving dish. Trim with a pointy knife in order that they’re the identical size, and discard or eat the ends.
- In a small saucepan over medium warmth, warmth the remaining 1 tablespoon oil till shimmering. Add the minced ginger and fry till aromatic and simply starting to brown, about 1-2 minutes. Reduce to low warmth and add the soy sauce, Shaoxing wine or water, sugar, MSG, floor sand ginger powder, white pepper, and sesame oil. Bring to a boil and permit to simmer for 1 minute till the sugar is totally dissolved.
- Pour the sauce on prime of the inexperienced beans, in order that the ginger stays on prime and the sauce swimming pools to the underside. Garnish with a couple of threads of pink chile earlier than serving.
