Liuyang Steamed Dried Long Beans with Cured Pork

Ingredients

• 80 g dried yardlong beans (dried gan doujiao)
• 250 g Hunan-style cured pork belly (larou)
• 2 tbsp fermented black beans
• 2 tbsp coarse dried chilli flakes
• 25 g fresh ginger
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1 tsp caster sugar
• 3 tbsp lard or groundnut oil
• 2 spring onions

Before you cook

• Soak the dried yardlong beans in warm water for thirty minutes until they are pliable.
• Squeeze the beans dry and cut them into three-centimetre lengths.
• Rinse the cured pork under warm water to remove surface salt and ash.
• Rinse the fermented black beans and drain them.
• Mince the ginger and garlic finely, and slice the spring onions.

Steps

1. Put the cured pork in a pan of cold water, bring it to the boil, and simmer for eight minutes.
2. Drain the pork, cool it under the tap, and slice it as thinly as you can.
3. Heat the lard in a wok over a medium flame.
4. Add the ginger, garlic and black beans and fry for thirty seconds until fragrant.
5. Tip in the drained long beans and stir-fry for three minutes so they take on the flavoured fat.
6. Season with the soy sauce and sugar and toss well.
7. Spread the long beans across the bottom of a deep heatproof bowl.
8. Shingle the pork slices over the beans so they overlap.
9. Scatter the dried chilli flakes evenly across the top.
10. Set the bowl in a steamer over hard-boiling water and cover it.
11. Steam for thirty minutes, until the pork fat has turned translucent and dripped down into the beans.
12. Lift the bowl out, scatter over the spring onions, and serve with rice.