Dry-fried String Beans (干扁四季豆, gān biǎn sì jì dòu)

This recipe is very similar to Dry-fried Four Seasonal Beans in Yan-Kit's Classic Chinese Cook Book, and there's little wonder why - it's the same dish! I only realised this though when I tried to translate/find the transcription for the Chinese title, literally it says Dry Flat Four Seasonal Beans.

There are small differences though; Yan-Kit's version definitely involves more ingredients and more steps, and yet I had the idea that this version was more aromatic. This version does contain minced pork, but I didn't have the idea that added a lot. Be careful not to deep-fry the beans for too long, they get soft very quickly!

Both recipes require a kind of pickled vegetable. Yan-Kit describes it as 'Szechwan preserved vegetable', this book describes it as 'pickled heading mustard'. What ...? Again, I looked at the chinese characters and found out they probably meant hot pickled mustard tuber (or 榨菜 zhà​cài, if you wish; image-google the English name to get pics of the packaging, and the Chinese characters to get images of how a mustard tuber apparently looks). In the end I just bought a random can of Chinese pickles. I look out for this next time I'm in Chinatown!

We served this dish together with Black Pepper Beef, a good match.