I helped my sister host a book club evening for a book based in China. For the life of me, I can’t remember what it was, but we picked up some potstickers, egg rolls and the ingredients for Szechuan Green Beans and Chinese Chicken Wings. The food was a hit. Here are the recipes:
Szechuan Green Beans
Ingredients
- 1 pounds green beans, washed and trimmed
- 2 cloves of garlic, pressed
- 1 tbsp ginger, minced - I used jarred
- 1 tsp chili garlic sauce
- coarse salt
Instructions
- Stir fry beans in a little oil over medium heat until they begin to wrinkle and brown in spots. This took about 10 minutes.
- Remove them from the pan.
- Heat oil and add garlic, ginger and chili sauce.
- As soon as it is combined and hot, toss the beans back in and stir fry again until they are coated in the sauce and sizzling hot.
- Serve immediately.
Chinese Chicken Wings
Ingredients
- 5 lbs of chicken wings, separated and tips removed
- 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
- 1 cup tamari soy sauce
- 1 cup water
- 2 tbsp ketchup
- 1 tbsp ginger, minced - again from the jar
- 2 tsp chili garlic sauce
Instructions
- Combine the sugar, soy sauce, water and ketchup, ginger and chili in a saucepan and heat until the sugar is completely melted. I only let it cool for a few minutes and then poured it over the wings in a bowl so they could marinate for a while. You could marinate them up to 24 hours in advance, if you're not a huge procrastinator. Ours got to marinate for about 25 minutes!
- Preheat oven to 350 and bake for about an hour and a half, in a single layer on baking sheets lined with foil - unless you love scrubbing.
- I saved the marinade and boiled it gently until it reduced to sticky goo and smeared that on the wings near the end of baking. It was crazy good!
Updated Oct 30, 2019
Though I earned the nickname “Last Minute Liz” from my Dad for my homework habits in high school, my sister is also a world class procrastinator! On our way to Costco to buy the ingredients for these dishes, she began reading the book she would be discussing that night at the book club get together she was hosting! I read a chapter aloud to her while she was driving on the way back and was getting into the story, but never finished it either.
Vancouver has some great Chinese Restaurants and Asian grocery stores. Here’s a recent list of the top Chinese Restaurants in Vancouver. We recently had visitors from New York who had heard about Vancouver’s Asian food scene and we found an amazing dumpling place on Robson St. called Dinesty Dumpling House, where I had delicious spicy squid, and we even shared a plate of Szechuan green beans.