Sichuan Dry Fried Green beans - How to Make Spicy Fried Stringbeans (干煸四季豆)

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

Hey, so a few notes: 1. That ganbian technique actually comes from a stir-frying technique called 'bianchao', which refers to stirfrying an ingredient with no marinade or pre-seasoning. 'Ganbian' is called 'ganbian' because the goal was to 'bian' (bianchao) until it's 'gan' (dry). As we said, we went with the restaurant deep-frying method here mostly because we love the obvious wrinkles it gives. 2. No, your eyes aren't deceiving you, a few of the greenbeans were slightly overcooked. Why? We were working on our little balcony with limited space, so... take a look at 1:22. We were *brilliantly* taking out the beans from the oil using a spatula when we shoulda just used a strainer. If you looked at the raw video, a few of the beans got an extra 30-60 seconds in there. Whoops, we ain't perfect :) 3. Apologies for forgetting to mention the chili and green onion quantity in the narration. If you didn't catch the captions I put up there, that's 10g each of dried chilis and sliced green onion (green part only). 4. When stir-frying, it's actually quite important to season the vegetables before putting the pork back in. The pork'll soak in the seasoning like a sponge. 5. The reason we take out the Sichuan peppercorns is that after that minute of frying, they've already done a good job seasoning the oil. We're both suckers for the pork and yacai in this dish, and if you leave the Sichuan peppercorn in it's much less convenient to much on that stuff. It's really totally up to you. So I know I talked to a couple of ya about a Har Gow video, and I'm sorry that that's not out yet. The way we've been working this is that I (Chris) plan on one dish a month and Steph does three (it takes longer for the white dude to research and test lol). We've been wanting to do a Har Gow but Dim Sum dishes're always a bit ambitious and Steph's just been swamped with work. Middle of next month she should be a bit less busy and we'll continue the Dim Sum series :)

[@Anesthesia069]

Great news on the Har Gow. I've had trouble with those in the past and I still have the starches in the cupboard, so I will definitely be pleased to see it.

[@rhijulbec1]

Chinese Cooking Demystified One thing I have always been impressed by, is that protein (meat in particular) does not seem to play heavily in recipes. Instead of being the main~such as we tend to do~80%meat 15%veg and 5%carbs, potatoes, rice etc~meat is more of a taste enhancer than the star, unless of course it is a meat recipe, lol. Am I correct in that assertion? I'm not a meat lover~at all~so recipes that have meat in small portions, that concentrate on fresh veg etc are my favourite. Hubby will enjoy them~he's the carnivore~and I'll be happier with less meat. Win~Win! Thank you Steph and Chris~you are one of the best cooking shows on here. Jenn 💖 in Canada 🍁

[@jaredhenning8862]

Thanks for all the hard work you guys put into this channel! This is hands-down my favorite youtube cooking channel.

[@thisissteph9834]

Thx and cheers ~

[@Anesthesia069]

This was one of the first recipes I tried a couple of years ago, back when I didn't have a clue about Chinese cooking. I am glad I have seen it done and will definitely try it properly this time!

[@mccallosone4903]

This is one of my favorite chinese dishes, and the first i tried to make myself. thanks for showing me the right way, i was close but missing a couple of key things that make it perfect!

[@fryingpancakes8445]

This is hands down one of the most delicious veggie dishes in the world. I have many childhood friends who don't like vegetables but none of them would refuse to eat this dish.

[@theoliem7075]

This is what I requested earlier thanks so much for listening to your subscribers mann you guys rocks !!

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

Cheers, glad you enjoyed it! It was high up there on the 'requested dishes' list, I just couldn't seem to successfully hunt down the specific comments. We figure that it's best to teach dishes that people *wanna* eat. We'll toss in some of our favorites to spice things up, but yeah! Always keep those requests coming :)

[@MotoMonkey92]

This looks fantastic! While traveling recently I was introduced to liangpi (Cold skin noodles) and totally fell in love. I had never had anything like them and now that I am home I would love to be able to make them myself, however, I am not sure where to start. It would be great if liangpi made it onto your list of requested dishes!

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

Yep, we totally wanna do liangpi. We wanna show how to make it from scratch though (actually not so bad), so it might not be super soon :)

[@MichaelFagan-c3h]

perfect instructions. this came out so so so good.

[@ellmatic]

TGIT... Thank God It's Tuesday!

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

Cheers! You should be able to find it on Amazon, and I've heard in Europe Tianjin Preserved Vegetable (Dongcai) is a bit more common. If you can't find the Yacai, you can always go that route :)

[@ellmatic]

Thank you so much :) That helps a lot.

[@tmarevisited118]

My partner and I both dislike green beans, but we had a whole lot of them and didn't want good food to go to waste... I've never been to China, yet some how I was "inspired" to make this having never even seen it before! I just found your channel this morning. I've always been a fan of the Szechuan food, so I got excited when I saw you had a whole play list. Scrolling through, I saw this and my jaw dropped... This is almost *exactly* what I made weeks ago with those left over beans! I actually did the "fry until dry" method (again, no idea why, just felt right) and I didn't have the pickled mustard. I do have szechuan peppercorn and I did leave them in. Anyway, thanks for this. We will absolutely be making it again!

[@Optimusprimerib36]

Looks class, about to make to this. Wish me luck

[@MLakeside]

Just tried this one, a great recipe! I left the peppercorns in out of laziness, but I think next time I'll follow your example and take them out. The numbness was a bit overwhelming and the hard texture not that pleasing. Also, I used zha cai, instead of ya cai because I couldn't find it at my local asian market, but I guess they're pretty much the same anyway.

[@clonearmycustomsrulz]

I just made this at midnight w/ lap yuk instead of the pork. I'm in heaven

[@animisticbeliefs7644]

One of my favourite dishes!

[@randomguy7503]

In my experience, baking the beans in the oven at 250°C for 13-14 minutes yields a texture extremely similar to deep frying.

[@TheTwoHeadedDragon]

Hi, love this channel! :) One thing I was wondering about: at 1:25 you mention putting the string beans back into the wok for another 15 seconds at a high temperature. I didn't quite understand the reasoning. Does frying in hotter oil make vegetables taste less oily?

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

Ostensibly. I wrote about this a bit in the reddit post... Kenji Lopez-Alt has written that this is a myth, and while there's other sources that disagree I'm inclined to agree with him. It's likely that the second fry is simply to crisp up the outside of the beans, but yeah in Chinese sources they'll sometimes talk about how the high temperature frying is 'expelling the oil'. So I guess what I'm saying is... I dunno :)

[@TheVietnameseCatGoblin]

I have always took what Kenji said as frying in higher temp would make it TASTE less oily, but actually still have the same amount of oil. The myth is “frying in high temperature makes food absorb less oil”. He hypothesised that it’s the leftover moisture from the food that wasn’t evaporated with the frying that made us taste that greasy feeling

[@deracid_kopf]

@@TheVietnameseCatGoblin pretty sure this is not a myth from experience. plus when you think about it: The high temperature makes moisture evaporate rapidly, creating a layer of steam (which will reach significantly higher temperatures than 100C) between the food and the oil. The myth is that hot oil will expell oil which is already absorbed by the food prior to deep frying at high temperature.

[@schwarzmaler7149]

Thanks for the great instructions! I had these in 2017 in Chengdu and tried to replicate them ever since, failed 3 times, but will give your recipe soon, I'm very excited to try it out! :)

[@maksi0013]

Wow awesome, thank you , I was hoping you'd make a video about Sichuan Green Beans! Please do Cōng Yóu Bǐng, someday ;) Greeting from Vienna

[@thisissteph9834]

Yup, scallion oil pancake is definitely on the list.

[@lbsyc]

Awesome video once again! This dish goes so well with rice! People who can't acquire Yacai can do without it, as it's not a game changing ingrediant. try adding some soy sauce instead ;). Also make sure the green bean is cooked thoroughly as undercooked green bean can induce food poison.

[@thisissteph9834]

I think you can opt for dongcai if can't find yacai. The cripsy pork bit fried with yacai (of basically any preserved salty veggie) is my favorite to go with rice, lol. That's also why I took out the Sichuan peppercorn, that amount is super numbing if you just munch on the pork.

[@rexiioper6920]

Check out serious eats version which suggests using the broiler in an oven for the beans

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

Yeah, I've seen that, I think it's a fun workaround for people in a kitchen without a wok :) The thing is though, while I'd have to try his specific recipe itself to make a solid judgement call... Steph often roasts greenbeans over high heat for her lunches and the texture is a bit too soft and dry for this dish IMO. While the broiler could be a decent solution, I'd worry that it doesn't quite heat things evenly and could dry things out *too* much. Take a look at Kenji's broiled beans for his recipe: www.seriouseats.com/images/2015/03/20150305-sichuan-dry-fried-green-bean-broiled-food-lab-08.jpg Those're really, REALLY scorched. Even a ganbian greenbean with a bit more scorching than ours looks like this: img.qnong.com.cn/uploadfile/2015/0524/20150524122549423.jpg So while I absolutely adore Kenji's stuff and I think it's a really nice workaround for some people in the USA, I *do* have to at least somewhat disagree with the title of their article: "For the Best Sichuan Dry-Fried Green Beans, Ditch the Wok and Turn on the Broiler". Although again, I've never tried the recipe myself so maybe he's right ;)

[@rexiioper6920]

Chinese Cooking Demystified I think his deal was that home ranges didn’t have the BTUs to give u the wok hei flavour. I don’t think he tried deep frying as u have though. I’m scared of deep frying so like the broiler idea. But the way u do the sauce is great and I may adopt that.

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

Haha Steph might kill me for sharing this but she was slightly burned from oil as a kid and she's often quite tentative when deep-frying too. I do think though that with a large round bottomed wok + temp gun set-up it's great because (1) you don't need so much oil (2) it's trivial to check the oil temp and (3) there's not much splashing. But if you like the broiling method stick with it! While I probably wouldn't do it myself (if I didn't wanna deep-fry I'd go with the traditional lengthy stir-fry method), broiling is CERTAINLY better than, say, blanching. Though one thing you might wanna try just for the hell of it sometime is that traditional ganbian technique that we illustrated in the Cauliflower vid :)

[@jeffmac8175]

sure like to be able to make 干煸牛肉丝 thanks like the videos.

[@nvizible]

Does anyone know if this small amount of msg does anything? I'm pretty much pro msg btw but like, will that small amount really impact the dish in any way?

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

It adds the needed umami. One sin of people using MSG is its common overuse. A bit goes a long way, so a touch at the end would be good enough.

[@nvizible]

@@ChineseCookingDemystified interesting, is there a way to describe the taste you aren't looking for so you know if youve used too much? Is like salty or um "over-umami-ey"? Or is it dish specific I know that some dishes like msg noodles and whatnot use larger amounts per volume. Sorry for the odd questions lol.

[@trish9444]

what is that YaTsai?

[@erinhowett3630]

I really like the stainless bowls you guys use. Any particular brand?

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

The little guys? We pick those up for like dirt cheap at the market lol, I don't think they're any particular brand.

[@erinhowett3630]

Chinese Cooking Demystified I really like the flat bottomed bowls. Much easier for prep.

[@ChefChrisDay]

Hey I tagged you guys in a post on Instagram the other day! Would love your thoughts!

[@borbetomagus]

Thanks for your video. Do you have a favorite brand of ya cai? (I can't get to an Asian market as often as I'd like). I have several packets (Sichuan Famous Brand/Sichuan Yibin Suimi Yacai Co - regular and hot varieties and (presumably) Jiao Da Ge Shi Pin / Yuan Zi Wu Gong Hai Nong Chan Pin Sheng Chan Ji Di - Yi Bin Li Mi Ya Cai), but the first time I used it I didn't taste much difference, but it appears I didn't use enough. Looking forward to trying your recipe! Thanks.

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

So in the video we're using a nice one from the Sichuan shop at our local market, but when buying the packs we've used this one before: :www.vietworldkitchen.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/6a00d8341ef22f53ef017c3804c322970b.jpg That one seems relatively common outside of China and I don't think it's too salty :)

[@borbetomagus]

That's one of the ones I have. Unfortunately, it might be several years past it's expiration date (!), I don't know if I'll use it or wait to get some new packets. Thanks for your videos.

[@AceHalford]

Can you please show how to make a whole soy sauce chicken recipe? Many people online do it differently, I would love your version, thank you!

[@thisissteph9834]

Yeah, I love soy sauce chicken. Maybe I can annoy my dad for his version, lol.

[@matthewclark8240]

I was wondering if you guys had any helpful tips on sorting the stems and seeds out of Sichuan peppercorns? I love using them, but prepping them is a pain.

[@fred5784]

Seeds and stems in your peppercorn are a sure sign of poor quality. Shop around. Good quality peppercorn will only contain flower buds.

[@matthewclark8240]

fred5784 Do you know of a good online vendor? My local Asian market only has seedy stemmy packages...

[@fred5784]

themalamarket.com I have access to several Asian markets where I live, but still order my Sichuan items from them. I highly recommend them.

[@matthewclark8240]

fred5784 Cheers!

[@denglinzhiniao]

干煸系真是超爱，po主下次可以试试干煸土豆丝，我觉得比薯条好吃多了，一吃根本停不下来！

[@thisissteph9834]

炸出来的肯定超好吃，lol。我们在武汉吃过一个干煸藕丝，感觉比土豆丝口感更好，准备以后做呀～

[@teresajenkins9056]

great video...thank you

[@retlavius]

just love this dish. might even be my fav after huiguorou. anyway good vid!

[@juliusfinkas]

Hey Guys, I love your content, it has inspired me to try out more chinese food, and I really like it! I have a question though: Do you have any recommendations for traditional vegan chinese recipes? I feel like there is animal-based flavoring in everything (like minced meat), and using mushrooms just doesn't seem to give that much flavor, at least in my experience.

[@peterhansmeier1646]

Thanks for the videos, I'm going to try a couple recipes this weekend. Do you have a good technique for di san xian (地三鲜)? I'm having a bit of trouble with the eggplant.

[@thisissteph9834]

It's a bit difficult to tell what you're having trouble have. Do you mean deep frying? Or the texture of the eggplant? Those are the two common issues people would have.

[@buzzerede]

want to see you do 梅干菜 扣肉or 烧肉!

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

Yeah we totally gotta do a Meicai Kourou... it just seems to keep getting pushed back lol. We got a 烧肉 recipe though if this's what you're looking for: kzbin.info/www/bejne/sIeUYn2miLh0lbM :)

[@pipsasqeak820]

How do you make the Cantonese version?

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

Cut out the chilis, peppercorns, yacai, and vinegar. Reconstitute some dried shrimp and fry those together with the pork. Use some Cantonese pickles in place of the yacai (chongcai/ganlancai). Double the sugar and add a sprinkle of light soy sauce. Hope that helps! :)

[@pipsasqeak820]

Chinese Cooking Demystified yeah thankz for that

[@banjo1434]

Hi folks. What's that gizmo you use for checking the fat temperature, how accurate are they, and where do i get one? I'm in the UK, but can buy online. Keep up the great work!

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

So it's called an infrared thermometer or more colloquially a 'temp gun' :) And yeah they're really handy. With a round bottom wok (which uses like a third of the oil a dutch oven would need... this was 1.5 cups IIRC) and a temp gun it really makes deep-frying SO much easier. They're not super accurate and it obviously just gets the surface temperature of something... so we usually use it for deep-frying. You can definitely find other uses for em though (I take the temp of the hot water for my coffee using it too), and luckily they aren't too expensive. You could be able to get one that's good enough for kitchen use for less than USD $20

[@banjo1434]

Many thanks. Adding Infared to my search pulled up many options. Should transform the headache of getting Tempura dishes consistent among many other things. Cheers!

[@im4narnia545]

Another great video, I have a lot of trouble getting good bright red sichuan in the Midwest. I love the numbing flavor! Anyone know any good brands that ship?

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

So I'm prolly not the best person to ask re sourcing, but I talked to someone from this company on reddit a bit: spicetrekkers.com/products/spices/szechuan-imperial-red-pepper Now those are expensive as hell, and I never tried their product myself. But the guy I was chatting with was super-passionate about sourcing quality Sichuan peppercorns, used to live in China, and definitely knew his stuff. Might be a decent one to try, but I'd absolutely defer if someone else has a better recommendation :)

[@rhijulbec1]

Honestly Steph and Chris~are your gastrointestinal systems made of iron? The two peppers in the amount you use would end me, lol. Respect! But seriously how do you do it? Asking for a friend (lol) Jenn 💖 in Canada 🍁

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

Jenn, great to hear from you! Steph was actually a little worried lol, you're feeling better these days, yeah? So regarding chilis, yeah both of us can generally handle lour spice :) One thing I *would* like to say though is that I personally don't think Sichuan food in general is overly 'melt-your-face-off' spicy - it's usually about getting the color and the fragrance of the chili :) E.g. I think Thai food's much spicier - they use those fiery birds eye chilis (~8x hotter than these chili cultivars we use here), and they use em fresh.

[@rhijulbec1]

Chinese Cooking Demystified Steph~bless your heart. I thank you and Chris for your good wishes and concern. That's why this channel is one of my absolute favourites. First one I watch when I see a notification. We've had some very bizzare weather here in Kingston Ontario Canada. We've had a contracted ice storm. In April~ugh. Temps are still many degrees colder than usual and I've been flattened with a migraine that required hospitalization. It produces symptoms very similar to a stroke. My words are slurred, I can't feel anything on my right side. I tried to tell the drs in emerg it's the migraine, but being young, they didn't take the word of an almost 40 year nurse and 34 year migraineur. So I stopped arguing and let them do their thing. And guess what? It was a particularly vicious migraine due to the particularly vicious weather. Back home but still in bed. You two are just the sweetest souls! 💖 And I appreciate so much your concern. Now~I've watched the video three times. Could this be used as a side dish? I'd have to reduce the chili and Szechuan pepper, but this will be delicious when fresh green bean season is here, IF it gets here~stupid weather grrrr. I LOVE Szechuan pepper, but in small doses~I like the way they numb your mouth. Hubby? Not so much, lol. Does Chinese cooking use many different chilies or sort of stick with three or four. I understand China is a hugely diverse country and has dozens of cuisines, but I've always been curious how certain chillies became standard, especially in Szechuan cuisine. It's redolent of Vindaloo in India to me. Again I am humbled by your concern and so thank you for answering my many questions. Jenn 💖 in Canada 🍁

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

Ah, that's really rough - and a bit scary - sorry to hear that. My father gets migraines and I used to get them myself when I was young (bizarrely and thankfully, they stopped ~14 years old). We'll be thinking of ya, let us know when you're back to 100% :) To answer your questions: 1. Re meat, I wouldn't wanna say that Chinese food's *quite* so meat light. The basic structure of a Chinese meal's one meat dish (that's probably about 85% meat), one veg dish (meat content varies, ranging from something like this to a simple stir-fried broccoli), and one carb (basic being white rice). All basically equal portions. From there, depending on how many people you'd be feeding, you'd add a tofu, veg, or meat dish depending on whatever you had around and felt like cooking. To give you an example... a super common 3-4 person meal I like to cook is a steamed fish, some Hakka pork-stuffed tofu, a simple stir-fried veg, and some white rice. So while that's less meat than a standard Western meal, it's certainly not insignificant! That said, I think Chinese veg/tofu dishes are an awesome choice for someone that wants to go 'meat light'.I was telling a buddy of mine the other day, "if you wanna be a vegetarian, learn Indian food... if ya just wanna eat less meat, learn Chinese food" 2. Re chilis, there's definitely different varieties but there's less of a range compared to New World chilis if that makes any sense? Like, basically every Chinese chili is either from the C. Annum or C Frutescens cultivars - and the most popular chilis are basically different varieties of cayenne. There's certainly differences, but nothing as wide as the gulf between, say Chipoltes vs. Habaneros vs. Aji Chilis. Unfortunately, it seems like Chinese chilis aren't really very available abroad. Here, something like Arbols are perfect :)

[@rhijulbec1]

Chinese Cooking Demystified Thank you, again for your kindness. I shall indeed let you know when I'm feeling better~than you again. I very much enjoyed the statement "If you wanna be a vegetarian learn Indian food: if ya just wanna eat less meat learn Chinese food." ☺ Makes sense! As for the chillies, I'm actually surprized! But only because in order for hubby to eat your recipe or a multitude of Asian cuisines I'd have to find a, say mild to medium pepper to replace any stong chilli pepper. Thank you for the answers! Jenn 💖 in Canada 🍁

[@soldiersvejk2053]

Are you a foreigner living in China？

[@silenttraveler2710]

Spicy ...

[@nguyenthicamtien8257]

i think you shoul write english spice subtitle, your video will good.

[@JTB312]

I wish building up heat tolerance wasn't so painful...

[@thisissteph9834]

This one isn't so spicy, just make sure you deseed all your chillis~ And eating with rice also helps to cut the spiciness.

[@brandowag3]

The absolute only critique of this channel is that you pour seasoning in a pile on top of the ingredients. It just irks me a little when i see it done, but other than that you two are the high water mark for cooking channels.

[@johnr8252]

ughhh... been watching this channel for a while....Everything seems to start with deep frying something. Goodbye

[@oftheone1856]

String beans, the one with string in them right? Why havent we brought this abomination of a green to extinction already?

[@jakevon1912]

Authentic. But I recommend u use t wok with wooden handle. The wok with 2 ear handles is for jet burner.

[@ChineseCookingDemystified]

Yeah I picked that guy up at a smaller market about a year back. I personally prefer the handle, but hey, we've come this far with the seasoning and I don't wanna turn back :) Not too bad to just use a rag to hold it anyhow.

[@jakevon1912]

Chinese Cooking Demystified actually.... we reseason t wok every day... kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z2bOl6aagJWUqrs ...... u can buy a jet burner on taobao: 【我剁手都要买的宝贝（猛火节能炉商用煤气灶9头中高压液化气灶饭店专用灶天然气猛火灶），快来和我一起瓜分红I包】m.tb.cn/h.WxYQdVX 点击链接，再选择浏览器打开；或复制这条信息￥ODE40IBBT4C￥后打开👉手淘👈

[@jakevon1912]

Chinese Cooking Demystified n t wok : 【我剁手都要买的宝贝（香港陳枝記代购 圓底熟铁无涂层 传统手工手打鍋木柄单柄铁锅炒锅），快来和我一起瓜分红I包】m.tb.cn/h.WxccAlC 点击链接，再选择浏览器打开；或复制这条信息￥FSCJ0IzagcE￥后打开👉手淘👈