Sunday, December 30, 2007

Snake Beans or Yard Long Beans


Snake beans go by a bunch of different names - yard long beans, asparagus beans and Chinese long beans. The most fun name of course if you want to entice the kids, would be "snake beans".

The dried black-eyed pea or bean comes from this fresh bean.

These snake beans were sold in a bunch the size of which was large enough to feed our family of four.

I blanched the snake beans first, then just before dinner I stir fried them. I just looked through my "cookbook" (more on that later) to see if I could find the recipe I used for the stir fry but, not surprisingly, I could not find it. I cut off the tips and weeded out the "bad" looking beans - ones that were too wrinkled or had black spots. I had obviously left these in the fridge too long before using - so who knows how much more wonderful they could have tasted if I had managed my fridge contents a little better.

I think I used garlic, beef stock, soy sauce (which incidentally did you know it is called SOYA sauce in Canada? My dh thought I was always pronouncing soy sauce incorrectly until we found out that it really is called two different things in Canada and the USA), cornstarch, pepper and ??

You of course can cut the snake beans into smaller, more manageable pieces - but don't cut them into too small pieces, or you miss out on the fun! If you don't cut them at all, you may have to throw caution to the wind, break table etiquette - and eat them with your fingers, like french fries.

I really liked the flavor of the snake beans and would definitely buy them again. Seems like the kids liked them about as much as they like "normal" green beans. To me, the flavor was similar to a green bean, but actually better tasting (and better looking!)


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