Chinese Green Beans with Peanuts, Golden Fried Tofu, Rice

 

Welcome to the second installment of Hannah’s New Year’s Resolution: Learning to Cook Chinese Food. I adapted the green bean recipe from a recipe I found on Epicurious; I basically increased the sauce-to-green-bean ratio. I also decided it was finally time to figure out how to cook nice fluffy rice and nice crispy tofu.

First, the ingredients:

• 3/4 pound green beans or Chinese long beans (you can double the recipe, but I found it hard to cook 1.5 pounds of green beans evenly in my wok)
• 1/2 cup unsalted peanuts
• 4 teaspoons soy sauce
• 2-3 fresh chiles, finely chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• peanut oil
• 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
• 1-2 large shallots – this is key!
• fresh lime juice from half a lime

• 1 cup white rice

• 1 package extra firm tofu
• some sort of marinade. I used 1/4 cup chicken stock, 1 tablespoon fish sauce, 1 tablespoon rice wine.

Heat water in a pot and boil the green beans for 3-5 minutes.

Rinse the rice by putting it in a strainer and running water through it, stirring the rice with your hands to make sure it’s fully rinsed. Put it in a small saucepan with two cups water. Cook it, covered, on medium-low heat for about 20 minutes.

Mix marinade ingredients together. Cut the tofu in about 12 pieces – they should be about one-inch thick. Drain it by wrapping the cut pieces in a clean dish towel, and putting something heavy on top. I usually put a cutting board on top of it and then put a few cookbooks on top. Leave it for about 20 minutes.

 To cook the tofu, heat oil in a wok or heavy pan on medium-high heat. Dip the tofu in the marinade for a few seconds — you don’t have to soak it. Put the tofu in the pan and let it sizzle until you can see that the bottom is becoming nicely browned (you should be able to see the browning creeping up the sides of the tofu), 3-4 minutes. Flip it. If it has four thick sides, you may want to brown it on all sides. Remove the tofu from the pan and let it cool on a paper towel.

For the green beans, prepare all the ingredients before you turn on the heat, because the actual cooking happens fast. Grind the peanuts in a blender or mini-prep until some are ground pretty well but there are still some larger pieces. Mix the soy sauce, chiles, and salt.  Chop the garlic, and slice the shallots into thin strips.

Heat a wok or large pan on high heat, until a bead of water evaporates in 1-2 seconds. Add the oil, and let it heat up for a 15-20 seconds. Add the garlic for about 5 seconds, then add the peanuts for 30 seconds. Add green beans and stir fry for 2 minutes. Turn off the heat, and add the soy sauce and shallots, and stir until shallots are wilted. Drizzle lime juice over the top.

 

 

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