Dry-fried sichuan long beans

Ever had the wrinkly, dry-cooked green beans from a Chinese restaurant and wondered how it's done? Here's how. This dish is readily available on the internet, but I'm reposting a version I like. It tastes nothing like what I've had at Americanized Chinese restaurants, but that's not a bad thing.

The trick to this dish is the dry-frying method, which isn't exactly "dry". It's frying for a very long time until dry, in a bit of oil. It requires very good temperature control, so hopefully you know your cooktop, whatever heat source it is. There are a number of workaround methods - Kenji Lopez recommends broiling instead of dry-frying, Woks of Life has one version talking about shallow-frying in 1/4 cup of oil, restaurants tend to just deep fry the things - but the traditional method is to fry with a minimal amount of oil and a healthy amount of patience, and I think the reward in consistency and flavor is worth the attention.

It took me many trips to different grocery stores to find the right preserved vegetable, so have a look at the picture and look for "ya cai" when you think you've found it. Otherwise you might end up with something too sweet. This has almost a peppery, pungent flavor unlike most other Chinese condiments I've cooked with. I'm not convinced that this $1.00 bag of product is the best version of itself, and may investigate either sourcing or making a fresher, less commercial version of this to see how it improves the dish.

This version uses purple Thai long beans from the garden, but you could use any string bean you have available, as long as it's fresh and not frozen.

All of the ingredients, including the ya cai. Look for this darker-hued product, not the brightly colored preserved stems. Both are in the refrigerated section

Sichuan Dry Fried Green (or Long) Beans

Lifted from https://redhousespice.com/dry-fried-green-beans/

• 12 oz long beans or green beans, trimmed to 2" lengths
• 2 tbsp neutral oil, divided in half
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 6 Chinese dried chiles
• 1 tsp sichuan peppercorns (but recommend far fewer if they're freshly picked, me)
• 1/4 lb ground pork
• 1 tsp Shaoxing wine
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• 1 tsp minced ginger
• 1.5 tbsp ya cai preserved mustard greens
• 1 tsp regular soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp dark soy sauce

Rinse the ya cai and squeeze out the moisture until the water runs clear - this has an overly pungent flavor to the preserving liquid that overpowers everything. Set aside.

Trim beans and massage with 1 tbsp oil and salt to evenly coat (this trick works great for fried rice as well!). In a large wok, cook beans over medium heat, tossing regularly, for 10-15 minutes, until wrinkled and thoroughly cooked. Remove to a plate.

Still on medium heat, add the remaining 1 tbsp of oil and toss in the sichuan peppercorns and chile peppers to lightly toast them. Before these burn, which is nearly instantly, add the pork and stir-fry quickly. As this finishes, add the Shaoxing wine to rehydrate, and allow it to cook off slightly. Then add the garlic, ginger, ya cai greens, and the soy sauces, and toss to combine.

Add the beans back in, quickly toss to combine, and plate!

Dry frying on an induction wok, a new toy I bought after one too many failed stir-fries on the stove. I eventually reduced the temp to 375 and had no regrets.

Here's what the prep area looks like after cooking the beans

The seasoning mix, which really just elevates the beans with a complex flavor. Probably a bit too much meat here, and the peppers got a little too charred in just a matter of seconds. Be careful with your temperatures

Paloma with Oleo Saccharum

I recently had my first Paloma cocktail, which was a revelation. Apparently I don't hate grapefruit after all, because this drink made me basically do away with drinking margaritas and switch to these instead. Think of it as a slightly more sweet, more complicated margarita, that's also pink. Palomas can be made with grapefruit soda, or they can be made with fresh grapefruit juice. And since I was trying to figure out why I needed to learn to make an oleo saccharum, once I started thinking through the drink I realized this was the right opportunity to learn.

Serve with a tomato-groundcherry salsa and some chips, and feel no shame in forgetting to make dinner afterwards

Oleo saccharum is a cool trick to extract essential oils from citrus peel, where you put the peels in with sugar and beat them up a bit until they soak into the sugar and create an infused syrup to use in cocktails. I've mostly seen lemon used in this way, and tried this once, but wasn't sure what to do with it other than make limoncello. The grapefruit version makes a really powerful grapefruit-flavor syrup that doesn't have too much extra bitterness, and it really amplifies the grapefruit flavor in the final drink. This can be made in a bowl and left overnight, but if you have a vacuum sealer and just need to have one of these as soon as possible, this can be made in a couple of hours.

The finished oleo saccharum after 2 hours under vacuum

I tried a bunch of variations on this cocktail - mixtures of tequila and mezcal, adding grapefruit bitters, charring the grapefruit on the grill first. In the end, some things helped with flavor, some with color, but a lot was overkill. I'm presenting the version I'm going to be making moving forward.

Completely pointless overkill. But the drink did come out a slightly darker color, with a bit more smoke flavor. I may revise if I oil the grapefruit first and get it over a higher flame.

I'm told by people in the know that the proper garnish on the rim of this drink is Tajin. I went with salt, but the swap certainly wouldn't hurt anything.

• 2 oz tequila, with up to 25% replaced with mezcal
• 1/2 oz fresh squeezed lime juice, from approximately 1/2 of one lime
• 2 oz fresh squeezed grapefruit juice, from approximately 1/2 of one grapefruit
• 2 oz club soda
• 1 tsp grapefruit oleo saccharum, recipe below. Substitute agave, simple syrup, or whatever liquid sweetener your body can cope with
• Coarse kosher salt, for rim of glass

Juice the citrus, saving the spent lime half. Rub this on the rim of your glass and allow to dry slightly, then dip rim in salt.

Into the glass, pour the tequila/mezcal, citrus juices, and oleo saccharum. Stir to combine. Add ice, top with the club soda, lightly stir again, and enjoy.

Oleo Saccharum

• Peels from 2-3 grapefruits
• Equivalent amount of superfine sugar, by weight, compared to the peels

Peel the grapefruit in large strips, being careful not to grab too much of the white pith layer. If you have superfine sugar, put the peels and the sugar into a bowl, or a vacuum sealer bag. If you have regular sugar, consider throwing into a blender for a few seconds, to make into finer sugar - this will help the liquids and oils more thoroughly dissolve the sugar, otherwise there's a crystallized layer of sugar that will form and be less useful. If placing in a bowl, bash up with a spoon or muddler for a while, then leave bowl overnight to extract the oils. If using a vacuum sealer, leave for 2-3 hours, or refrigerate for up to a week, no bashing necessary.