Gan Bian Si Ji Dou (干煸四季豆)
Sichuan dry-fried green beans with a crisp pork and shiitake crumble, and chilli and Sichuan pepper fried to hu la
Green beans are dry-fried in oil until the skins wrinkle and blister. Pork mince, fresh shiitake and suimiyacai are fried together until the crumbs are crisp. Dried chilli and whole Sichuan pepper are fried to hu la, the scorched chilli aroma. A small dose of Chinkiang vinegar goes onto the hot pan wall at the end, and ground Sichuan pepper goes on off the heat. This version is adapted from Maggie Zhu's recipe at Omnivore's Cookbook. It uses more pork, less suimiyacai and less soy sauce, and MSG holds the savoury level. It serves 2 as a main with rice.
Why the first revision
First version. Adapted from Maggie Zhu's recipe at Omnivore's Cookbook. The green beans are 360 g, the amount available. The pork is raised to 200 g and fried until crisp, so the dish serves 2 as a main. The crumble has 30 g of fresh shiitake, which was the amount available. Suimiyacai and light soy sauce are reduced to lower the sodium. MSG at 1.5 g holds the savoury level. The dried chilli and whole Sichuan pepper are fried to hu la. Chinkiang vinegar is added at the end. This version is written before the first cook. No run is recorded.
Prepare
7 steps- 1 A
Cut the stem ends off the green beans.
- 2 A
Dry the green beans fully with a towel.
Water on the surface makes the beans steam. They do not blister.
- 3 A
Cut the woody stem ends off the shiitake. Mince the rest to 2 mm.
- 4 A
Cut the dried chillies into pieces of 20 mm. Shake out approximately half of the seeds.
Keep more seeds for a hotter dish.
- 5 A
Mince the garlic and the ginger.
- 6 A
Mix the Shaoxing wine, light soy sauce, sugar and MSG in a small bowl until the sugar dissolves.
- 7 A
Put the Chinkiang vinegar next to the stove, separate from the sauce.
Blister the beans
4 steps- 8 B
Heat the peanut oil in a 28 cm wok or frying pan on medium-high heat until it shimmers.
Tool Wok - 9 B
Add the green beans in one layer. Add the salt.
- 10 B
Turn the beans every 20 to 30 seconds for 7 to 9 minutes.
Set the heat to medium if the oil smokes heavily.
Time 7 min–9 minWork Dry-frying - 11 B
Move the beans to a plate when the skins are wrinkled and blistered and no raw snap remains.
Keep the oil in the pan.
Crisp the crumble
4 steps- 12 C
Put the pork mince and the shiitake in the same pan on medium-high heat.
- 13 C
Press the mince flat, then break it into fine crumbs.
- 14 C
Add the suimiyacai and the dark soy sauce.
- 15 C
Fry and chop for 7 to 9 minutes, until the fat is clear and the crumbs are deep gold.
The mix boils first, then goes quiet, then sizzles. Browning starts only when the water is gone.
Time 7 min–9 minWork Dry-frying
Fry the hu la
4 steps- 16 D
Push the crumble to one side of the pan. Set the heat to medium.
- 17 D
Pour the peanut oil into the empty side of the pan.
- 18 D
Add the chillies and the whole Sichuan peppercorns. Stir for 30 to 45 seconds.
Stop when the chillies are dark red and smell toasted. Black chillies taste bitter.
Time 1 minWork Blooming - 19 D
Add the garlic and the ginger. Stir for 15 seconds.
Finish
5 steps- 20 E
Set the heat to high. Put the beans back in the pan and mix them with the crumble.
- 21 E
Pour the sauce around the edge of the pan. Toss for 60 to 90 seconds, until it is absorbed.
Time 1 min–2 min - 22 E
Pour the Chinkiang vinegar onto the hottest part of the pan wall. Toss two times.
- 23 E
Remove the pan from the heat. Add the ground Sichuan pepper.
- 24 E
Taste a bean with some crumble. Add more salt only if the dish needs it.
Notes
4This recipe starts from Maggie Zhu's Sichuan Dry Fried Green Beans (干煸四季豆) at Omnivore's Cookbook.
The original uses 1 lb (454 g) of green beans for 2 to 4 people. It pan-fries the beans until they blister. Then it cooks ground pork with suimiyacai and ground Sichuan pepper. It adds dried chilli, garlic and ginger, returns the beans, and finishes with Shaoxing wine, light soy sauce and sugar.
The author prefers a flat frying pan to a wok for the bean stage, because the flat base gives more contact with the heat. She lists the pork as optional but strongly recommended. She names suimiyacai as the ingredient that makes the dish taste authentic.
This version changes the original in these ways:
- Green beans: 360 g, approximately 80 percent of the original.
- Pork mince: 200 g, up from 4 oz (113 g). The dish becomes a main for 2.
- The pork is fried until crisp, not only until the surface is cooked.
- 30 g of fresh shiitake goes into the crumble.
- Suimiyacai and light soy sauce are lower. MSG replaces part of the savoury taste.
- The dried chilli and whole Sichuan pepper are fried to hu la. Ground Sichuan pepper goes in at the end, off the heat.
- 5 ml of Chinkiang vinegar goes onto the hot pan wall at the end.
Raw green beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) contain phytohaemagglutinin, a lectin. Heat destroys it. Cook the beans until the centre has no raw snap. Do not stop at crisp-tender.
The first plan used 3 dried shiitake, soaked cold, with 30 ml of the soaking liquid in the crumble. Only 30 g of fresh shiitake was available, so the soak and the liquid were removed.
Dried shiitake gives far more free guanylate than fresh. Drying and soaking break the cells, and the mushroom's own enzymes then cut its RNA into 5'-nucleotides. Fresh shiitake makes some guanylate when heated, but much less.
To replace the lost synergy, MSG went from 1 g to 1.5 g.
Mincing fresh shiitake also starts the enzyme reaction that makes lenthionine, the sulphur aroma of shiitake. The heat of the pan stops that reaction.
Try 3 dried shiitake in place of the 30 g of fresh shiitake.
Soak them in 150 ml of cold water in the refrigerator for 6 hours or longer. Strain the liquid through a fine sieve. Mince the caps. Add the caps and 30 ml of the liquid with the pork. Keep the MSG at 1 g.
The cold soak slows the phosphatase that breaks guanylate down to guanosine. Guanosine has no umami taste.
Provenance
Adapted from Maggie Zhu, "Sichuan Dry Fried Green Beans (干煸四季豆)", Omnivore's Cookbook, https://omnivorescookbook.com/szechuan-dry-fried-green-beans/ (published 25 October 2023, updated 24 December 2024, accessed 17 September 2026). Scaled from 454 g to 360 g of green beans and changed as the rationale states.
Literature
2The science
5What is actually happening in the dish, and why the techniques work.
Green beans are approximately 90 percent water. In hot oil, the surface water boils off first. The cells under the skin lose pressure, and trapped steam lifts the skin into blisters.
When the surface is dry, its temperature rises above 100 °C. Maillard reactions and caramelisation then start on the sugars in the skin.
The wrinkled skin has more surface area and many small folds. A small volume of sauce stays on the beans and does not pool in the pan.
One layer is necessary. Beans that overlap hold steam against each other and do not blister. 360 g of beans fits in one layer in a 28 cm pan.
Pork mince and fresh shiitake both release water in the pan. While water remains, the pan stays near 100 °C and nothing browns.
When the water is gone, the sound changes from a boil to a sizzle. The temperature rises, the fat renders, and the Maillard reaction starts.
Fresh shiitake is approximately 90 percent water. Add it at the start, with the pork. Its water then leaves during the boiling phase and does not delay the browning.
The glutamate and nucleotides in that water do not evaporate. They stay on the meat.
Glutamate comes from the suimiyacai, the soy sauce and the MSG. Guanylate comes from the shiitake. The umami receptor T1R1/T1R3 binds glutamate at one site. A nucleotide at a second site holds the receptor in its active shape. The taste is much stronger than the sum of the two.
This lets the dish use less suimiyacai and less soy sauce than the original. MSG is approximately 12 percent sodium by weight. Salt is approximately 39 percent.
Estimated sodium for the whole dish is approximately 2 g, or approximately 1 g for each serving. Nobody measured this. It is calculated from the salt figures stored on each ingredient. Light soy sauce (approximately 0.75 g) and suimiyacai (approximately 0.5 g) carry most of it. The 1 g of salt on the beans adds approximately 0.4 g.
Hu la (糊辣) is the aroma of dried chilli and Sichuan pepper fried to the edge of burning. It is also the base aroma of gong bao dishes.
The sugars and amino acids in the chilli skin react under heat. They make roasted and smoky compounds, such as pyrazines and furans. Capsaicin and the terpenes of Sichuan pepper, such as linalool and limonene, dissolve into the oil. The oil then carries them through the dish.
Past dark red, the chilli turns black and bitter. Use medium heat and count the seconds.
The whole peppercorns give aroma but lose much of their numbing in the hot oil. The ground pepper at the end puts the numbing back.
Acetic acid boils at 118 °C. On a pan wall hotter than that, much of it evaporates at once. The aged, malty compounds of the Chinkiang vinegar stay.
Add it in the last seconds. Long heat with acid replaces the magnesium in chlorophyll with hydrogen. The green then turns olive.