Green beans + Pork

Ever since I started gardening, I plan out what to grow next year before this year's crop is ready. This year's garden was no exception. The planing stage stared in the fall of last year. In addition to my usual suspects (tomato, cucumber, zucchini, peppers, and eggplant), I decided to grow beans. I realized that I am not particular fond of beans, but for some reason, I wanted beans. Not just any kind of beans, but the kind that my grandmother used in her sautéed green beans with pork. The dish was not a fancy one. Whenever green beans were in season, I would find a plate of green beans cooked with pork at the lunch table almost everyday. Those beans were bit flat with a thick layer of flesh. They weren't really sautéed either. They were braised in soy sauce just long enough to make them tender. After all the research, I have decided last winter that this season, I will be growing pole beans, the purple kind.

After months of watering, weeding, and waiting, I finally picked enough beans to make this sautéed "green" bean with pork dish. So I did and it tasted great! The purple beans actually turned green after cooking. As I was looking up a comparable Italian dish to blog about, I came across this recipe that uses Italian style green beans (pole beans). Talking about my Italian connection.

Grandma's Green Beans and Pork

1 lb Italian style green beans (pole beans), cut into 1 in pieces
1/2 lb of boneless pork sirloin, cut into 1/4 in thick slices
2 Tsp Chinese cooking wine or dry sherry
1/2 Tsp corn starch
1/4 tsp salt
4 Tsp canola oil
1/4 cup of soy sauce
2 Tsp chopped scallion
1 Tsp finely chopped ginger
2 cloves garlic

1. Mix pork, cooking wine, corn starch and salt together, marinate for 30 minutes; stir periodically.
2. Turn the heat to medium high, heat 2 Tsp of oil in a pan until hot
3. Add the pork, cook until all meat changes the color, stir constantly;
4. Move the pork from the pan to a separate bowl.
5. Add the remaining 2 Tsp of oil to the pan, heat the oil until hot, add scallion and ginger, stir until fragrant, 1 minute.
6. Add green beans, cook for 2 minutes.
7. Reduce heat to medium low, return the pork to the pan, add soy sauce with 1 cup of water, cook until the beans are tender and the sauce has reduced to 1/3 of a cup, stir periodically.
8. Serve with white rice.