The stir-fried sour long beans and minced pork is classic for a reason. The additive spicy and sour flavour of the beans is uniquely produced by fermentation. Then combining with the tender marinated pork, you have got a flavourful dish to serve over rice for a satisfying meal.
This stir-fried sour long beans and minced pork dish features fermented Chinese long beans. It takes about 10 days to ferment the long beans. But once the beans are ready, you can whip up this quick stirfry in under 30 minutes. Although it’s an acquired taste, the stir-fried sour long beans and minced pork is intensely flavourful.
Why Stir-Fried Sour Long Beans and Minced Pork?
Over the years I have shared many fermented recipes on this blog, because I believe, by incorporating fermented foods, we are eating in a way more in tune with nature.
One is that fermented vegetables provide many health benefits, for example, easy digestion, more nutrition, source of probiotics, etc. Another is that fermentation also naturally preserves the vegetables and gives them unparalleled umami flavours that you can’t simply replicate by adding vinegar or citrus juice.
This sour long beans and minced pork dish is a great example! Therefore, I want to share the recipe even though few people has heard of it in North America. In fact, this stir-fried sour long beans and minced pork dish is quite famous in China.
Many of my blog readers are already familiar with fermentation and cooking with fermented vegetables. Now if you want a project more interesting than making sauerkraut and pickles, try sour long beans, and then make this long bean stirfry with minced pork!
Is It Worth The Time?
If you count the fermentation time of the long beans, it will take 10 days to make this dish from start to finish. To those who love the sour beans, it’s totally worth the wait! However, don’t forget that fermenting the long beans is a great way to preserve them too. You are not spending the 10 days to make only one dish, you are preserving fresh long beans while they are in season to last through the winter. I highly recommend fermenting a large batch of long beans while you are at it, so you can enjoy them for months to come.
Stir-Fried Sour Long Beans and Minced Pork Ingredients
You will need the following ingredients for this recipe. Although I laid out all the ingredients in the photo so that you can see them better, you don’t have to do this before you start the cooking steps in the recipe below.
- Fermented long beans
- Cooking oil
- Minced pork
- Light soy sauce
- Dark soy sauce
- Ground white pepper
- Starch
- Green onion
- Ginger
- Garlic
- Dried red chili peppers
- Doubanjiang (fermented bean paste)
Serving Suggestions
My favourite way to eat this dish is to serve over plain rice. You can also serve it over cooked and drained noodles. Besides, you can add it in noodle soups as an extra topping.
Related: More Tasty Recipes Using Fermented Vegetables
- Easy Stir Fry Kimchi & Pork Belly
- Gluten-Free Ribs and Kimchi Noodle Soup
- Smoked Salmon Potato Salad with Pickle Juice Dressing (a Probiotic Twist)
- Instant Pot Russian Vinaigrette Salad (Vegan, Paleo, Probiotic)
- Olive and Preserved Lemon Poached Shrimp
- Spicy Beef Stir Fry
Stir-Fried Sour Long Beans and Minced Pork (酸豇豆炒肉末）
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground pork
- 2 teaspoons light soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
- 1 teaspoon potato starch or corn starch
- 4 tablespoons avocado oil divided
- 1 pound fermented Chinese long beans cut into 1/4-inch segments
- 1 stalk green onion thinly sliced
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 1 tablespoon ginger minced
- 3 dried red chilli pepper cut into 1/4-inch segments
- 1 tablespoon doubanjiang (fermented bean paste)
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, combine ground pork, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce and white pepper. Then add the starch and mix well with the pork. The starch forms a protective coating to keep the ground pork tender once cooked.
- Let the pork marinate for 10 minutes. In the meanwhile, prepare all the other ingredients.
- Mix 2 tablespoons of oil into the ground pork right before cooking. This prevents the pork from sticking together.
- Add 1 tablespoon of oil into the wok or frying pan. Turn the heat on medium. Add the pork into the wok while the oil is not yet hot. Break up the ground pork with a spatula. As soon as the pork changes colour, transfer the pork onto a plate.
- Add the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil into the wok or frying pan. Add the onion, ginger, garlic, and dried chilli. Stir for 1 minute or until fragrant. Add doubanjiang, and stir for 30 seconds. Add the sour beans, and stir for 3 to 4 minutes until the moisture in the beans evaporate and the beans soak up the flavour of the aromatics and seasoning.
- Add the ground pork back into the pan. Stir to combine with the sour beans for 2 minutes. Remove from heat.
Video
Notes
- Cooking Oil: Chinese cooking typically uses peanut oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, corn oil, or rapeseed (canola) oil. For a healthier alternative, I use avocado oil. But you can use any of these cooking oil interchangeably. I usually avoid oils with distinct flavors that may interfere with the flavors of Chinese cooking, such as olive oil and coconut oil.
- Doubanjiang (Fermented Chili Bean Paste): This ingredient, made from broad beans (aka fava beans) and chilis, is primarily used in Sichuan cuisine. It has a chunky texture and adds a salty and spicy flavor to dishes. The most famous kind is pi xian doubanjiang, which has a deep-red color from a long fermentation.
- Ginger: For this dish, you can use either fresh ginger root or the ginger from your fermented Chinese long beans.
I don’t know if I agree that this is an acquired taste. So delicious! And so quick to cook. Are there any other dishes that use the fermented long beans?
Stir-frying with pork is the most popular sour long bean dish – it’s cooked this way 95% of the time. If someone doesn’t eat meat, they can stir fry the beans on their own. You can also add sour long beans in fried rice and noodle soups.
Added to noodle soups sounds good too, thank you.
What do you do with your leftover brine? It is still very tasty