Szechuan Green Beans with Pork

Ingredients
4 tablespoons soy sauce
4 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons dry sherry
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon cornstarch
¹⁄₂ teaspoon ground white pepper
¹⁄₂ teaspoon red pepper flakes
¹⁄₂ teaspoon dry mustard
2 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 pound green beans, stem ends snapped off and cut into 2-inch pieces
1 pound ground pork
6 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons fresh ginger, minced
3 green onions, sliced thin
1 teaspoon sesame oil

Instructions
1. In a small bowl, stir together the soy sauce, water, sherry, sugar, cornstarch, white pepper, pepper flakes, and mustard until sugar dissolves; set aside. (You can use an immersion blender for this step.)  

2. Heat the vegetable oil in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over high heat until just smoking. Add the beans and cook, stirring frequently, until crisp-tender and the skins are shriveled and blackened in spots, 5 to 8 minutes (reduce heat to medium-high if beans darken too quickly). Transfer the beans to a large plate or serving bowl.  

3. Reduce the heat to medium-high and add the pork to the now empty skillet. Cook, breaking the pork into small pieces, until no pink remains, about 2 minutes. Drain the pork and return to hot skillet.  

4. Still over medium-high heat, add the garlic and ginger; cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir the sauce to recombine and return the beans to the pan with the sauce. Toss and cook until the sauce is thickened, 5 to 10 seconds. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the green onions and sesame oil. Serve over rice, if desired.  

Comments
This is adapted from a recipe found in The Best of America’s Test Kitchen 2008.  I’m sort of on an American’s Test Kitchen/Cook’s Illustrated kick at the moment.  I increased the sauce ingredients and the pork from what the original recipe called for.  I actually made what you see here with a mixture of wax and green beans, since I happened to get a bunch of wax beans in my CSA box this week.  In the future, I’d probably up the amount of green beans to 1 ¹⁄₂ pounds to get a higher veggie to pork ratio.  I believe that this sauce and basic method would work quite well with broccoli and other vegetables as well.  It did have a kick to it thanks to the red pepper flakes, so if you’re not a fan of spicy food you might want to reduce the amount of red pepper or even omit it all together.

America’s Test Kitchen 2008