Shredded Beans
扁豆丝
English: Shredded Beans
Chinese: 扁豆丝
Pinyin: biandou si
Literal: Shredded Beans
Shredded Beans is a classic dish found in the chun bing (spring roll) restaurants of Beijing. It’s traditionally served on the side of pancakes and so becomes part of the stuffing. These are not like the crispy fried spring rolls we know in the West, but an assemble-yourself type affair, ordering different types of stuffing from scrambled eggs to marinated fish to sliced beef. Everyone has their favourite stuffings for spring rolls, but for me, it’s a layer of these shredded beans, with pork and sweet-pickled radish. They don’t need to be hidden inside a spring roll, they make a perfect side dish too.
Cooking the shredded beans is quick: I give them an initial stir-fry, remove them from the wok, and then add them back in later. This allows you to make sure the beans are charred but soft without risk of burning the garlic or spring onion. You could leave the pork out if you prefer, I often do.
For the beans, you can use any, but I’ve found a flat bean such as Romano, is much easier to cut. Prepping the beans takes around 10-15 minutes, as each bean needs to be top-and-tailed, cut in half and then sliced as thin as you can into strips. Be patient and try to get into a routine, the result is definitely worth it.
Serves 3-4
Ingredients
300g flat beans (such as Romano beans)
150g pork loin - cut into thin strips
6 garlic cloves
4 spring onions (white part only) - sliced
1 tablespoon ginger - finely chopped
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon sugar
1.5 tablespoon light soy sauce
2 teaspoons dark soy sauce
½ teaspoon oyster sauce
Method
Prepare the beans. Top and tail them, then cut them in half. Now shred the beans lengthways. This requires a bit of time. Take your sharpest knife and slice as thin as you can, making long strips of beans. You should get about five strips from each flat bean.
Prepare the garlic, ginger and green onion. Finely chop the garlic cloves, the ginger and slice the spring onions.
Slice the pork loin thinly, then cut each slice into thin strips.
Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a wok over a medium heat, then add the beans and fry until they are cooked, perhaps a bit charred, then remove from the wok.
Add a dash more oil then add the garlic, ginger and green onions. After about 30 seconds, working quickly, throw in the pork and fry until just cooked, then add the beans back in, followed by the salt and sugar. Toss a few times and then add the soy sauces and oyster sauce and fry on a high heat, tossing until everything is dark.
Fry for another 2 minutes, and then serve.
