Sauteed Winged Beans

Having a friend and house guest visiting from Japan is fun but we have been spending so much time out doing things (North Shore, hiking Diamond Head Crater, shopping, day trip to Maui, eating, etc), it has been hard to find the time to post.  I thought I would do a quick one on some Winged Beans we bought at the farmer's market on Saturday.  Winged beans (also known as the Goa Bean in Malaysia), if you have not seen them before are a type of green bean that are a bit larger than your normal green beans and have four frilly "wings" running along the edges.  They are grown in tropical, humid areas and are used in cooking much like beans are and the shoots and flowers are often used in cooking too.  (You can read more about them here and here).  I had seen them before but had never tried them. The woman at the farmer's market said to trim the ends and saute them in garlic, soy sauce and oyster sauce so that is what we did.

Sauteed Winged Beans

1 lb winged beans or green beans, cleaned, ends trimmed

2 Tbsp chopped garlic

3 Tbsp soy sauce (I used low sodium soy sauce)

2 tsp oyster sauce

black pepper and salt to taste

Saute garlic over medium heat, until lightly browned. Add beans, soy sauce and oyster sauce and mix. Cover pan with lid and cook over medium heat until beans are tender but not mushy, about 5-6 minutes.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Notes/Results:  The flavor is similar to green beans, they just look a bit different and as Yoko says "they are entertaining and good!"  The sauce adds a lot of flavor and we cooked them slightly "al dente" as we both like our beans a bit firm.  We were hungry and I just threw these into the saute pan, although a quick blanch first, would have kept the green color a bit more. We served them with all the leftovers we had in the fridge--beef adobo, garlic jasmine rice, chickpeas and tom kha gai soup.  (Very International of us!)

Hope you are having a good week!  I plan on posting some of our adventures this weekend and next week.