easy recipe

Flat beans stir-fry with ground pork & bean sauce, recipe

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Flat beans are in season now for € 0,99 p/kg, fresh bright green, smooth skin, crunchy and string less, flat beans belong to the same group as runner beans. Flat beans here in The Netherlands/Europe are cooked, boiled or steamed, although I do not know many cooks who will use this unless they have a steamer appliance or steamer-oven otherwise too much hassle. My favorite way of cooking is stir-frying, the cutting up takes more time than cooking in a wok or saute pan/flatware.

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Day before I had prepared fresh aubergines with SiChuan chilibean paste and I only needed half a package of ground pork meat, so I had some leftover ground meat to be used.

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When I refer to soybean paste, I realized it can be confusing especially since I have 4 kinds of bean sauce. Three as shown in the picture above; the first one is a Taiwanese brand, the two glass jars Chinese and the fourth one missing is a Thai version (a photo will appear in another dish soon). Now for tonight’s dinner I only used bean sauce, the middle jar but if I would be cooking with chicken or dou fu I would mix bean and hot bean sauce together for an even stronger flavor.

Flat beans stir-fried with ground pork & bean sauce

To speed up cooking even more, you could zap the bean in the microwave for 5-7min (depending microwave power), we like a crunchier texture so never pass beyond 7 min otherwise even stir-frying will make them wilt even more. With cutting up the vegetables, cooking the rice (2-3pers) and stir-frying this dish dinner is served with 15- 20 minutes tops.

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You can substitute flat beans for runner beans and make this a vegetarian dish by omitting ground meat, variation are endless. You can even create a spicier version by mixing both the bean and hot bean sauce or adding a chili paste to enhance spiciness and leave out the bean sauce entirely. This recipe gives you a base to mix and match and experiment further to create your dish.

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Share a bread recipe and tips

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I’ve tried making soda bread before but couldn’t get a nice end result, so I browsed around on the internet and the best tip I read with recipe was shared on a sub group befittingly named Soda bread – The Art of Bread Google+ communities. The recipe is shared from Food52 here is the link to Peggy’s authentic Irish Soda bread with raisins, the only thing I changed was adding 1 cup of raisins instead of 1½ cup but that’s per every baker’s taste.

Without a doubt this recipe is a keeper, although I had to adjust the baking time due to my oven. The secret is simple, used the members advice from the soda bread group “do not over knead” to heart. I slightly stirred and gently round shaped it in glass baking dish. It worked;-)! Had guests coming over, served it fresh from the oven with real butter but everyone enjoyed the smell and texture as it was served. Make my day (morning!)!! Assembling and just bringing it together 15 min, in a pre-heated oven 45min, my older combi-oven took a bit longer 55-60min, all-in-all you’ll have fresh baked bread within a hour 😉