Stir Fry Green Beans

Are you or your children sick and tired of eating boiled green beans? With this simple recipe, you can easily make those 'bland' green beans into a delicious yet healthy dish.

Ingredients

 * 2-3 cloves of garlic
 * ~30ml vegetable oil (preferably corn or canola)
 * Salt
 * Coarse ground black pepper or medium ground pepper (optional)
 * 1 pound fresh green beans

Steps

 * 1) Prepare the beans by snapping off the tips.
 * 2) Snap the beans into into pieces around 3-5 cm long (1-1/2").
 * 3) Wash the beans under running water.
 * 4) Boil a pot of water at the highest heat on your stovetop.
 * 5) Put all the beans into it when the water is thoroughly boiling (you can clearly see the bubbles coming out from it). The water should then stop boiling (do not turn the heat down) because the beans are cooler and take up some of the heat.
 * 6) Wait about 5-30 seconds after the water starts bubbling again, then empty the contents into a colander. The time it takes affects how soft the beans are, the longer the time they are boiled, the softer they are; the shorter the time, the crunchier they are.
 * 7) Peel and wash the garlic, and chop it up into fine pieces no bigger than 5cm across and no smaller than 2 cm across (1/4" and 1/8" respectively).
 * 8) Heat a saucepan/frypan with the vegetable oil in it. Wait until the oil is heated up (you can see it 'swirl/shimmer' somewhat if there is light shining on it).
 * 9) Throw the garlic into it once the vegetable oil is heated up. Watch out, as it will sizzle and may spray oil if there is too much water on the garlic.
 * 10) Put the beans into the saucepan/frypan once the garlic starts to turn light golden-brown (this happens in about 5-10 seconds). Stir fry them with a spatula or pair of chopsticks stirring and turning them over constantly.
 * 11) Start sprinkling salt slowly at about one minute in, according to your preference. Be sure to stir it constantly, so that it is evenly spread, and taste it while adding salt every once in a while to find out how much salt you like. Be sure to keep stirring and mixing the beans constantly afterwards too.
 * 12) Taste the beans at about 3 minutes in and see how crunchy they are to your preference. Keep frying it until it is thoroughly fried, but stop before it burns.
 * 13) Enjoy! Best served hot. Serves 4-6.

Tips

 * You can also sprinkle in coarse ground black pepper at about 2 minutes in, or after you've finished, again tasting it to your preference. Ground chili pepper is also good, preferably with long beans, but you have to make sure that you cook it thoroughly (with ground chili pepper, add it after adding the salt).
 * It is recommended to try it first without pepper first, then try adding pepper; some people have different tastes, and garlic only goes well with some things.
 * You can also use long beans; you just cut off the tips and cut them to the appropriate size.
 * This recipe also works with regular sized pieces of broccoli, except that it is not recommended to add black pepper to the broccoli with this recipe.
 * This recipe may seem long (sorry), but in total, it takes around 20-30 minutes, 10-20 of which is spent preparing the beans. With long beans, it takes considerably shorter time to prepare (5 minutes for the beans for a 15 minute total), but the texture is much different.

Warnings

 * Watch out when cooking the garlic, the oil can jump out.
 * Watch out when heating up the vegetable oil, especially if you are putting your face over it to see if it is thoroughly heated. If there is a bit of water on the sauce pan when the oil is thoroughly heated, it will jump about and may burn!

Related Tips and Steps

 * How to Grow Beans and Peas
 * How to Make Green Beans Taste Good
 * How to Make Refried Beans