Spicy Long Beans with Sausage and Mushrooms | Wok Wednesdays

Gathering the ingredients for these spicy long beans was a fun adventure. Some of the things I discovered by making this amazing dish:

1. Chinese long beans are crunchy and delicious... and they are definitely long. They are also curly! Their taste is similar to green beans, but they seem to hold their crunch after cooking, and leftovers stay bright green. They came bundled with bands at the top and bottom of the beans and the bundles were the perfect weight for this recipe. 
2. Chinese sausage may look like skinny salami, but it must be cooked before you eat it. The Asian market where I purchased it had rows and rows of various varieties, so you have to look at the ingredient list and make sure you are buying pork sausage. 
3. Sichuan preserved vegetable... what? I spent a lot of time figuring out what this is both on the interwebs and in the store. It comes in cans or vacuum sealed refrigerated packets. The people I asked at the Asian market didn't seem to know what I wanted so I kept hunting. I finally found a 39 cent packet of something that seemed to come close... pickled mustard stem in a red chili paste. The packet was 2 ounces and the recipe called for 2 ounces so I went with it. 
4. Buying dried shiitake mushrooms at an Asian market makes a huge difference in the amount of time it take for them to soften. If you need dried shiitake mushrooms, get them at an Asian market. Clearly they don't sit around as long. 

So why all of the drama? It's time for Wok Wednesdays. Twice a month, we make a different recipe from Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge by Grace Young. This week, we are making Spicy Long Beans with Sausage and Mushrooms. 

This is my new favorite vegetable recipe. Seriously. Delicious. 

Chinese long beans, ground pork, Chinese sausage, shiitake mushrooms, Sichuan preserved vegetables, scallions, cilantro, soy, a bit of sugar, and salt and pepper. These ingredients, when stir-fried together, are amazing. This is not hyperbole. 

The Chinese sausage is a pretty amazing ingredient. You can try it in fried rice too. 

Get Grace's book. Make these beans. You will love them. So far I have loved every recipe. 

You can also get the recipe and check out Grace Young, our Wok Wednesdays guardian angel and wok demystifier, demonstrating wok cooking >here<.