Sesame Green Beans

Are you ready for this?  Good!  Let's get to cooking some good green beans.  I think 'good' is the word of the day.  When you hear it (in your head as you read it, I mean) you can scream, Pee Wee's Playhouse style.  If anyone asks why you're screaming, you can show them this blog and they can make these awesome beans too.  Make sure to show them the post about Japanese Pan Noodles also so they can have a balanced meal.  Sort of.  Maybe we will add veggie spring rolls.

In the words of a good friend of the family... AAALLL Right! Here is your list of good ingredients:

one pound of fresh green beans

sesame oil

sesame seeds

garlic clove

soy sauce

fresh ginger

And this is what to do:  Clean and snap those beans to the length of your choice.  I would love to make this dish with those crazy long Asian green beans that I've seen at the farmer's market!  The next step is to blanch the beans in a pot of pre-boiling water.  You don't need to salt these because there will be soy sauce later.  After 2 minutes, rinse these in cold water and pat very, very dry!  It would probably be smart to use flour sack or another type of towel, but I just use a LOT of paper towels in the kitchen, please do not use as many paper towels as I do.  Once I did go on a paper towel fast for over a month! It was brutal and yet kind of freeing.

Now smash the garlic, peel it and mince it finely.  You can grate a nice chunk of ginger now too if you wish.  It slices and peels easily when it has been stored in the door of the refrigerator right next to one hundred and six black bananas.  (The bananas are not necessary, but I know they are there.)

This is the time to clean the sadly crumb be-speckled stove top around the burner if you are irresponsible like me.  Then, and only then, you can put a nice frying pan on med high heat and add, oh... about 2 Tbs of sesame seed oil aka two turns of the bottle over the pan.  You MIGHT want to check to make sure the bottle has one of those plastic things in it that makes it pour in a drizzle.  If it doesn't have that dealy... well... it's not funny.  

Right when your bat senses tell you the oil is about to smoke,  gently add all of those gorgeous beans.  You don't need to stir them immediately, but gently shake the pan occasionally during the next 2 minutes.  When you see the beans getting nice and 'scorched', aka get lovely color on the sides that are touching the hot sizzling pan, then you can toss on the soy sauce, garlic, seeds and grated ginger root.  Mmmmm! That smells good! (Did you scream like Pee Wee?  That's okay, I know it really is a boring word.) Gently shake the pan for another 30 seconds or so and then serve these bad boys nice and hot.  These can go with just about any meat and potato meal. 

I'm sorry there is no picture of this wonderful food for the soul to date.  I will add one the next time I make it!  I promise!