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Stir Fried Bean Threads

Welcome back! 
Today, we have an interesting Sichuan dish of stir fried bean threads! A more colloquial name for this is "ants climbing a tree", or ma yi shang shu (螞蟻上樹) in Chinese. Yes, it's kinda strange of a name, but apparently that's what the dish is supposed to resemble! It's just as the name implies: it's noodles made out of starch from beans (which typically involves sweet potato or tapioca nowadays) stir-fried with some ground pork and sauce. It's a great, chewy dish with quite the Chinese flair.

Stir Fried Bean Threads

Ingredients:

  • 140 grams bean threads
  • 4-6 ounces ground pork
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 teaspoon ginger paste
  • 4 green onions, chopped
  • 2-3 tablespoons spicy bean paste
  • 1 tablespoon soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon rice wine
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 1 1/4 cup broth/water

Directions:

  1. Prepare the bean threads by soaking in water until soft (this will take about 20-30 minutes). Drain the water when soft.
  2. In a pot, cook the ground pork until it browns.
  3. Add the garlic and ginger and stir.
  4. Add in the spicy bean paste, soy sauce, rice wine, and sugar and stir.
  5. Add in the broth/water and cook until it starts to boil.

  6. At this point, add in the bean threads. Stir constantly until the liquid is almost all absorbed.

  7. Add in the green onions and mix them in.
These noodles are sometimes referred to as vermicelli, which is somewhat of a misnomer, as it's really a term for thin spaghetti. Cellophane or glass noodles would be a more appropriate label. People often serve this actually as a side dish rather than a noodles dish - don't forget that this isn't really noodles but more of a bean thing. However, we often have this as a base for a meal, with various side instead of this being the accompaniment. That's because this is just so good!

-Chefpo
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