Fragrant, salty and pungent, dry fried green beans with Chinese olive vegetable is one of the best ways to serve green beans.
Today I’m sharing a very tasty stir-fry dish which, I believe, is the most delicious way to cook green beans. Fragrant, salty and pleasantly pungent, dry fried green beans (干煸四季豆) with Chinese olive vegetable combines the classic flavour of Sichuan food “Mala (麻辣, hot & numbing)” and the super aromatic taste of Chinese olive vegetable from Chaozhou cuisine. If you haven’t tried this classic dish, I’m pretty confident that you will fall in love with it at the first bite.
How to oven “dry” the green beans
The crucial part of making this dish is to “dry / dehydrate” the green beans before frying with other ingredients. In Chinese restaurants, it’s a common practice to deep fry green beans. I prefer to avoid deep-frying when other cooking methods can achieve the same result.
For this recipe, roasting the green beans in an oven is my favourite method. Not only does it require the least amount of oil, it also frees your hands and attention for preparing other dishes. For 350g /12oz of green beans, you will need only 1 tablespoon of oil. The process takes 12-15 minutes in a preheated oven at 220°C / 425°F (Fan 200°C / 400°F or Gas 7). The roasting time may vary depending on the performance of the oven and the size of the green beans. Observe closely and take out the beans as soon as they become lightly blistered and brown.
If you prefer deep frying, you will need an adequate amount of oil to immerse the beans completely. Add the beans when the oil is hot and fry them over a high heat. Then transfer them onto a plate lined with kitchen paper to remove excess oil before going to the next step.
Chinese olive vegetable and its substitutes
In terms of flavouring, Chinese olive vegetable (橄榄菜) plays an important role in my dry fried green beans. A speciality of Chaozhou cuisine (潮州菜), it’s a dark green paste-like mixture of mustard green and Chinese olive (different from Mediterranean type) pickled in oil, soy sauce and other seasoning. With its unique umami, rich flavour, it’s a brilliant condiment for meat / vegetable stir-fry, fried rice, steamed egg or fish dishes.
Chinese Olive Vegetable
Chinese olive vegetable (see image on the left) usually comes in jars which can be purchased in Chinese / Asian stores. When using, remove the olive pit that you might find in the jar. If the jar contains whole olives, simply chop the flesh into small pieces and discard the pit.
Don’t worry if you cannot get access to Chinese olive vegetable. You may replace it with other Chinese preserved vegetable / pickles. The dish will taste a little different but equally delicious. Choose one of the followings: Chinese preserved mustard green (Sui Mi Ya Cai, 碎米芽菜), Tianjin preserved vegetable (Dong Cai, 冬菜) or chopped Chinese pickled mustard root (Zha Cai, 榨菜). Please note that these substitutes contain a high level of salt, so you might need to adjust the salt in recipe.
You can make the dish vegetarian
Classic dry fried green beans calls for minced pork for extra flavour (Minced beef works too). However, if you wish to make it vegetarian, you can simply omit the meat. It will still taste fantastic (provided you don’t alter other spices and seasoning). Another alternative is to use Shiitake mushrooms, preferably the dried ones as they have a more intense taste. Soak the mushrooms beforehand and chop them small prior to cooking.
▼ VIDEO RECIPE
Fragrant, salty and pungent, dry fried green beans with Chinese olive vegetable is one of the best ways to serve green beans.
Ingredients
- 350g / 12oz green beans
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon cooking oil (see note 1)
- 1 tablespoon cooking oil
- 1 teaspoon whole Sichuan peppercorn
- 6 dried chilli, or to taste
- 80g / 3oz minced pork (see note 2)
- 1 teaspoon Shaoxing rice wine
- 1 teaspoon minced ginger
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 1.5 tablespoon Chinese olive vegetable (see note 3)
- 1 teaspoon light soy sauce
- Salt, to taste
Instructions
- Wash green beans and trim both ends. Pat dry with a clean tea towel.
- Put all the ingredients from Group 1 into a resealable plastic bag. Rub around to evenly coat the beans. Then place onto a roasting tray (large enough to avoid over-lapping). Cook in a preheated oven at 220°C / 425°F (Fan 200°C / 400°F or Gas 7) for 12-15 minutes until the beans become lightly blistered and brown (See note 1 & 4).
- Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a wok / deep frying pan over a high heat. Fry Sichuan peppercorn and dried chilli until fragrant (do not burn).
- Then stir in minced pork and Shaoxing rice wine. When the pork becomes pale, add ginger, garlic, Chinese olive vegetable and soy sauce.
- Put in the beans then fry for 1 minute or so. Sprinkle salt and stir well. Serve immediately with plain rice and other savoury dishes.
Notes
1. An alternative way to prepare the green beans: If you wish to use the deep frying method to dehydrate the beans, you will need an adequate amount of oil to immerse the beans completely. Add the beans when the oil is hot and fry them over a high heat until they become lightly brown and blistered.
2. To make the dish vegetarian. You may simply skip the minced pork or replace it with Shiitake mushroom (soaked and finely chopped).
3. Substitute for Chinese olive vegetable (橄榄菜). You may use other Chinese preserved vegetable, such as Chinese preserved mustard green (Sui Mi Ya Cai, 碎米芽菜), Tianjin preserved vegetable (Dong Cai, 冬菜) or chopped Chinese pickled mustard root (Zha Cai, 榨菜). Adjust the salt in recipe as these substitutes contains a high level of salt.
4. The roasting time may vary depending on the performance of the oven and the size of the green beans.
Thank you for reading my post. If you are looking for inspiration to cook authentic Sichuan dishes, have a look at the following recipes:
Pan fried tofu with garlic sauce (鱼香豆腐)
Shredded pork with garlic sauce (鱼香肉丝)
Spicy vermicelli stir-fry (蚂蚁上树)
Happy cooking!
Wei Superbe!
The taste, spiciness, color and overall deliciousness of this dish makes it one to keep and repeat again and again. Merci!
Je vous en prie Michele! Glad that you enjoy it. Happy cooking!
This is definitely my favorite way to eat green beans. Thanks for sharing!
You are welcome Wendy! Happy cooking!
Hi, you suggest using dried shiitake mushrooms. I love those, but I seem not to be able to get those mushrooms to be as tender as they usually are in Chinese restaurants. I soak them overnight, but still they remain a bit chewy. Is there some trick to this?
Hi Paul! Yes, rehydrated shiitake mushrooms do taste a little chewy. Sometimes restaurants use fresh shiitake mushrooms for a tenderer texture. I suggest you FINELY chop the rehydrated mushrooms so that you still have their lovely flavour but won’t notice the texture too much.
Thank you so much. I have been trying to replicate Ganbian sijidou / ganbian doujiao ever since returning from a year in Longnan, Gansu. But there seemed to be a trade-off between authenticity and the amount of excessive oil required, which neither I nor my kitchen wanted. This is the perfect foreigner’s solution. (The lack of ovens is a funny one – in China, they would always ask what we eat in Britain as zhushi, and then I would have a job differentiating between roast and baked potatoes, it was all the same 烤土豆 for them without ovens…) Very interested to learn more about pickled veg too: recipes always seem to call for yacai but I only seem to ever be able to get zhacai. Interesting that you call for olive vegetable (which appears to be from Chaozhou in Guangdong?) in a Sichuan dish here. I tried it today and it was quite good, slightly different from the zhacai I used last time. It’d be great to have some idea for what else these pickles are good for now I have all of them! I also wanted to try your youpomian recipe but was afraid of using plain flour (before I was using pricey gaojinmianfen from the Chinese supermarket!) – next time I’ll try it. I’m learning a lot from your videos – my only problem is that I don’t have time to do them all!
Thanks!
Thank you Tom for sharing your experiences and thoughts. Yes, Yacai is usually used in the dish. Olive vegetable has a quite different flavour but tastes equally delicious. British plain flour works perfectly for hand-pulled noodles. In my opinion, no need to buy special flour from Chinese supermarkets.