Suan Doujiao Rou Mo

Hunan's sour pickled long beans stir-fried with minced pork, garlic, and chilli, the rice-bowl dish of the Chinese home kitchen

Origin: Changsha & Hunan

From the journey of Cowpea.

Suan doujiao are long beans pickled in brine until they turn khaki and sour, and in Hunan and Sichuan every household with a pickle jar has some in it. Cut into tiny pieces and stir-fried hard with minced pork, garlic, and fresh chilli, they make one of the most common dishes of the home kitchen, salty, sour, and hot enough to need a great deal of rice, which is the purpose. It is eaten as a dish at the family table, spooned over rice as a one-bowl meal, and used as a topping for the rice noodles of Changsha. The long bean in the jar is the yardlong bean, the Asian vegetable form of the cowpea, and China has the earliest description of it. Li Shizhen, the Ming physician whose Bencao Gangmu was completed in 1578, wrote that the pods of jiangdou came white, red, purple, and mottled, that the longest reached two feet, and that young they were a vegetable and old a grain. 'This bean may be a vegetable, a fruit, or a grain,' he wrote, 'the most useful of all and the best of beans.' He was writing at Qizhou, on the Yangtze in Hubei, Hunan's neighbour to the north.

Ingredients

Sour Long Beans

300 g yardlong beans, left whole
1 litre water
50 g salt
1 tsp Sichuan peppercorns
2 dried red chillies
3 slices of ginger

Stir-Fry

250 g sour long beans (above, or bought)
150 g minced pork, not too lean
1 tsp light soy sauce
1 tsp Shaoxing wine
0.5 tsp cornflour
2 tbsp vegetable oil
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 cm piece of ginger, finely chopped
3 fresh red chillies, chopped, or 1 tbsp salted chopped chilli
0.5 tsp sugar
2 spring onions, chopped

Method

To pickle the beans, boil the water with the salt until dissolved and leave to cool completely. Coil the beans into a clean jar with the peppercorns, chillies, and ginger, pour over the brine to cover, and weigh the beans down. Leave at room temperature for 5 to 7 days, until they are sour and olive-green.
Rinse the sour beans, squeeze them dry, and chop them into 5 mm pieces. If they are very salty, soak them in cold water for 10 minutes and squeeze dry again.
Mix the pork with the soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, and cornflour and leave for 10 minutes.
Put the chopped beans in a dry wok over a high heat and stir for 2 to 3 minutes to drive off their moisture. Tip them out.
Heat the oil in the wok and stir-fry the pork, breaking it up, for 2 to 3 minutes until it has lost its colour and begins to crisp.
Add the garlic, ginger, and chillies and stir for 30 seconds, then return the beans and stir-fry over a high heat for 2 to 3 minutes. Add the sugar and taste before adding any salt.
Stir in the spring onions and serve at once with plenty of rice.

Notes

Ready-made sour long beans are sold in Chinese supermarkets, in jars or vacuum packs, as suan dou jiao. For a vegetarian version, replace the pork with finely chopped shiitake mushrooms or crumbled firm tofu.

The Gastrographer

Name: Suan Doujiao Rou Mo
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 30 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Changsha & Hunan
Ingredients: 300 g yardlong beans, left whole; 1 litre water; 50 g salt; 1 tsp Sichuan peppercorns; 2 dried red chillies; 3 slices of ginger; 250 g sour long beans (above, or bought); 150 g minced pork, not too lean; 1 tsp light soy sauce; 1 tsp Shaoxing wine; 0.5 tsp cornflour; 2 tbsp vegetable oil; 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped; 1 cm piece of ginger, finely chopped; 3 fresh red chillies, chopped, or 1 tbsp salted chopped chilli; 0.5 tsp sugar; 2 spring onions, chopped

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Ingredient originTrade or transit route

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