After discovering the beauty of chilli bean sauce, I use it practically for all my spicy stir-fry dishes, including the Szechuan Eggplants, Mapotofu, and this dish that I’m about to share with you.

Green beans with minced pork is a classic stir-fry in Asian cooking. Of course, if you don’t like spicy stuff, you can omit the chilli and just use fish sauce and pepper. But this dish is so quick and easy, it’s perfect for weekday cooking. Especially when it’s cold outside!

Now, there are two ways to cook the beans: stir-fry them over high heat until charred, or simply blanch them. While I would love the charred version, sometimes it just takes too long and my pan is not built for high heat (if you have a proper wok, go for it). So I usually just blanch them and stir fry as usual. It really is a cheater’s version.

Oh, in this dish I use chilli bean sauce, and if you haven’t heard of it/cooked with it before, here’s the picture.

It’s available in any Asian grocery store, and I’m pretty sure it’s available at some big supermarkets too, since they’re quite an Asian staple.

So let’s get this dish started!

Serves 2-4
Cooks in 20 minutes
Difficulty Easy

INGREDIENTS

  • green beans, about 250-300 g or so, washed and cut to bite-sized pieces
  • 3 garlic cloves, diced finely
  • ginger, diced finely, slightly less than the amount of the garlic cloves (if you don’t have fresh ginger at home, I usually buy a bottle of pickled ginger and use those. They last so long in the fridge)
  • 1-2 tbs chilli bean sauce
  • cut chilli (optional, depending how spicy you want it to be. Last time I used two chilli and the dish turned out to be too spicy. One is probably enough!)
  • 1-2 tbs of chicken stock (fresh is certainly best, but I usually cheat and use the powdered one)
  • 200 gr minced pork (I usually marinade the mince with fish oil, pepper, and sesame oil prior to cooking)
  • sesame oil
  • oil to stir-fry

METHOD

  1. Blanch the green beans on a pan until it’s soft (but not too soft—use a fork to see whether it’s cooked to your liking). Put the beans on a separate bowl and discard the water.
  2. Wipe the pan of excess water with a paper towel and add oil. (I am too lazy to wash multiple pans, so I use the frying pan for blanching.) Stir-fry garlic, chilli, and ginger until slightly brown. Add the minced pork.
  3. When the pork is almost done, add 1 tbsp of the chilli bean sauce. Then add the green beans back to the pan. Add more chilli bean sauce, pepper, and sesame oil. Add chicken stock. Mix everything well.
  4. Taste and see whether you need extra chilli bean sauce.
  5. Serve with a bowl of rice.