Blistered Sichuan Dry-Fried Green Beans with Pork and Preserved Mustard

⏱ 30 min · Serves 4

Wrinkled, blistered green beans tossed with savoury minced pork, garlic, ginger and salty ya cai — smoky, numbing and dangerously moreish. It's a restaurant classic that's genuinely easy in a home wok, and it eats just as well cold from the fridge the next day.

Per serving: 278 kcal · 12.5g protein · 12.0g carbs · 20.0g fat

Ingredients

• 500g green beans, topped and tailed, cut into 7cm lengths
• 3 tbsp neutral oil (groundnut or rapeseed)
• 150g minced pork
• 2 tbsp Sichuan ya cai (preserved mustard greens), rinsed and chopped — or 1 tbsp chopped preserved radish
• 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 15g fresh ginger, finely chopped
• 6 dried red chillies, snipped in half, seeds shaken out
• 1 tsp Sichuan peppercorns, lightly crushed
• 1 tbsp Shaoxing rice wine
• 1 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1 tsp dark soy sauce
• 1 tsp caster sugar
• 1/2 tsp fine salt, or to taste
• 1 tsp toasted sesame oil
• 3 spring onions, thinly sliced

Method

1. Wash the beans and dry them thoroughly on a tea towel — any water will make the oil spit and steam rather than blister them.
2. Heat 2 tbsp of the oil in a wok or wide heavy frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the beans in one layer and fry, stirring only every 30–60 seconds, for 8–10 minutes until the skins are wrinkled, blistered and browned in patches. Work in two batches if your pan is crowded.
3. Tip the beans onto a plate and wipe out any burnt bits. Return the wok to medium heat with the remaining 1 tbsp oil.
4. Add the pork and fry, breaking it up, for 3–4 minutes until it's dry and crisping at the edges.
5. Add the dried chillies and Sichuan peppercorns and stir for 20 seconds until fragrant, then the garlic, ginger and ya cai; stir-fry another minute.
6. Splash in the Shaoxing wine and let it sizzle away, then add both soy sauces, the sugar and salt.
7. Return the beans to the wok and toss hard over high heat for 1–2 minutes so everything coats and the sauce clings with no liquid left in the pan.
8. Off the heat, stir through the sesame oil and most of the spring onions. Taste for salt, scatter the rest of the spring onion over, and serve hot with steamed rice.