Here's a recipe for a dish packed with goodness, bursting with vitamins. Bean sprouts are great - low carbohydrate and zero fat, but full of protein, vitamins and minerals. You can easily find them in the shops but if you want to try producing your own, have a look at my page on how to sprout beans for details of how to do it.
It seems to be conventional wisdom that olive oil is not good for stir frying as it starts to smoke and burn before it reaches a high enough temperature. I would generally agree with that too, but here, in this recipe, I'm going to suggest 'stir-frying' in olive oil. It works, I think, because the bean sprouts release a lot of water which stops the whole mixture getting hot enough to burn the oil, but it also shows that there are no hard and fast rules in cooking - more like sets of guidelines. Many years ago, I saw a cooking programme on television and this po-faced guy in a white hat was saying in what seemed like a rather contrived accent, that 'of course, dill and garlic are never combined in a dish.' Who was I at the time to know that he was talking bollocks? Only later I realised, when I started to travel in the ex-USSR and discovered that chopped fresh garlic and dill are added to almost everything at the end of cooking time. I guess in that man's experience - the kind of guys he hung around with, the kind of cooking he was into or whatever - for him that might have seemed right. But it's not a rule.
So, were going to do a wee bit of stir-frying, which means we get a pan containing a little oil to a high temperature, throw all the ingredients in at once, and stir them about for a few minutes. Once we've done that, though, we add some chopped tomato which brings the temperature right down and, in the end, produces a lovely succulent, moist dish, more like stewed or braised vegetables.
I chose the seasoning for this dish because it was the start of spring and I wanted to cook something fresh and light tasting - an uplifting, cleansing taste celebrating the winter's end, the lengthening days and the bursting buds. Besides,I had some coriander, mint and basil lying around. If you don't have those particular herbs, why not experiment with another combination. How about some thyme and/or oregano? Maybe some coriander or cumin seeds?.. or chilli?
Ingredients
250-300g of green beans
250-300g of bean sprouts
3-4 cloves of garlic
A few sprigs each of fresh green coriander, basil and mint (dried basil and
mint can be substituted)
Olive oil
Salt
Top and tail the green beans. Take a handful and chop them into small pieces about half a centimetre thick. Peel and finely cop the garlic. Chop the tomato and herbs then set them aside for later.
Heat a little olive oil in a pan and when it is hot, add the bean sprouts, green beans and garlic with some salt. Stir fry at a high heat for five to seven minutes before adding the chopped tomato. Stir for a further two minutes then turn off the heat and add the chopped herbs.