stir-fried green beans with garlic & chillies

These are the green beans I made to serve alongside the Thai beef with chilli and mint I posted earlier in the week. They take 5 minutes to make and are absurdly delicious: salty with soy, spicy, and almost sweet with garlic. The beans aren't overwhelmed by all these flavours, but stay crisp and distinctly themselves.


Stir-fried Beans with Garlic & Chillies

150g / 5 oz green beans, topped and tailed
peanut (groundnut) oil
2 garlic cloves
2 Thai bird's eye chillies, or other hot red chilli peppers*
1 tbsp soy sauce

Prepare everything before you cook: top and tail the beans; crush the garlic cloves; remove the seeds from the chillies and dice (always wear gloves when working with bird's eye chillies). Have the soy sauce and a measuring spoon ready.

Lightly oil a wok, then place over medium-high heat. When the wok is very hot, add the beans and stir-fry for 2 minutes. Add the chilli, stir-frying very briefly, and then the garlic. You must be very careful not to burn the garlic, so keep stirring the beans as you add it, and wait only a few seconds before adding the soy sauce. Cook for about 10 more seconds, stirring all the while, before removing from the heat and serving immediately.

* If you replace the Thai bird's eye chillies with another kind of hot chilli pepper, you'll need to experiment - you may need more or less than two of them.