Create Color with Green Beans with Garlic Black Bean Sauce

Along with orange chicken, green beans with garlic black bean sauce is one of my favorite Chinese American dishes. Next to other battered and fried meat in sticky sweet sauces, theres something pleasantly refreshing about a savory vegetable dish. Sure, its a long way from healthy, but the color and flavor contrast lures me in every time. If youve planted a patch of green beans this year, you may be finding yourself with fully matured beans that are a little too tough to eat by now. But before you let them go to seed, try using them in this dish. The high temperature oil renders even the most mature green beans tender, while preserving their vibrant green color. To make this dish vegan, you can substitute the pork for crumbled firm tofu thats been drained for an hour in a sieve, and the chicken stock for vegetable stock. If you like it spicy, try adding your favorite Asian hot sauce. I used doubanjiang (chili bean paste) because it goes well with the black beans, but sriracha or sambal ulek would work too. As for the black beans, before you run out and buy a can of beans, I should tell you that the black beans used in this dish are something very different from the black turtle beans used in Latin American cuisine. Also known as douchi (??) in China, these black beans are actually soybeans that get their color and distinct flavor from a fermentation process. The pea-sized beans are salty, relatively dry, and have a pungent earthy aroma along with an abundance of savory umami compounds. You can usually find them sold in small vacuum-sealed bags in most Asian grocery stores, but if you cant find them you can substitute the more common black bean sauce that comes in jars and is sold in the Asian section of most supermarkets.

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Marc Matsumoto is a culinary consultant and recipe repairman who shares his passion for good food through his website norecipes.com. For Marc, food is a life long journey of exploration, discovery and experimentation and he shares his escapades through his blog in the hopes that he inspires others to find their own culinary adventures. Marcs been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today, and has made multiple appearances on NPR and the Food Network.