Szechuan-Style Green Beans

I’ve been wanting to share this recipe with you for weeks, but, as sometimes happens, life got in the way. Mostly, I’ve been putting in work on an exciting soon-to-be-launched project with Andrew. More on that soon(ish), and yes, it involves food. Additionally, after six months of squatting in Andrew’s dad’s SoHo apartment (thanks, Mark!), Andrew and I have decided to make our temporary move to NYC a little less temporary. The last month or so has been a whirlwind of apartment hunting — very excited about our new place in Williamsburg — figuring out how to move all of our worldly possessions cross-country, and getting our house in San Francisco ready to sell. Add to that my birthday, visits from a few close friends, plus two West-coast weddings, and it’s safe to say we’ve been pretty busy.


Now that the craziness has died down a little bit, I’m looking forward to getting back into the swing of things here. Lots of tasty recipes to come soon, starting with these green beans from Gwyneth Paltrow’s new-ish cookbook It’s All Easy: Delicious Weekday Recipes for the Super-Busy Home Cook. Fittingly, I’ve been cooking from it a lot lately, and while the ease is relative — no, Gwyneth hasn’t transformed into a slow-cooker dinner and microwave mug breakfast booster — I’ve found it lives up to it’s subtitle. These boldly-sauced blistered green beans have been a particular favorite, a dish both Andrew and I dig in to with glee. If you, like us, typically find yourself ordering whatever green beans are on a Chinese restaurant’s menu, be they garlicky, spicy, or black-bean-sauced, I suspect you will also fall hard for this one.

Szechuan-Style Green Beans

 

Save Print

Author: Adapted from It's All Easy: Delicious Weekday Recipes for the Super-Busy Home Cook by Gwyneth Paltrow

Recipe type: Side Dish

Cuisine: Chinese

Yield: Serves 2-4

Ingredients

• Kosher salt
• 1 tablespoon sambal oelek
• 1 tablespoon tamari or soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons minced ginger or ginger juice
• 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon maple syrup
• 1/2 pound green beans, ends trimmed
• 3 tablespoons high-smoke-point oil, such as rice bran or peanut
• Toasted sesame seeds, for garnish

Instructions

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together the sambal oelek, tamari, ginger, sesame oil, and maple syrup.
3. Add the green beans to the boiling water and cook for 2-3 minutes, or until bright green. Drain well and spread out on a clean kitchen towel to dry.
4. Once the green beans are dry, heat the high-smoke-point oil in a large skillet until shimmering but not yet smoking. Add the green beans and cook, turning occasionally, until deeply blistered, 3-5 minutes. Turn off the heat and add the sauce, stirring to coat. Let sit for 2 minutes before serving.
5. Garnish with sesame seeds and eat hot.

Notes

If you have a very large skillet, this recipe can be doubled; do not triple it, as the green beans will crowd the skillet and cook unevenly.

3.5.3208