Triple Sesame Green Beans

I’ve never cooked much with bamboo shoots, but when I was looking for canned goods – outside of your usual suspects like corn, chickpeas, baked beans, etc. – I saw these Native Forest Organic Bamboo Shoots and threw a bunch of them in my cart. Combine that with a newfound appreciation for tahini – thanks to my friend Lisa Hayim at The Well Necessities and her invention of the “papaya boat” which is simply brilliant – and the triple sesame theme came to life thanks to my pantry. I’ve being using this Israeli brand Baracke and it’s incredible. Sesame oil. Sesame seeds. Tahini. The three key ingredients for these Triple Sesame Green Beans.

SHOPPING LIST: 1 lb. trimmed green beans, 1 can bamboo shoots, chopped garlic, grapeseed oil, sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, tahini, salt, pepper, ginger powder, onion powder, sesame seeds

Add 2 tB. grapeseed oil to your pan and 2 tB. of chopped garlic. Strain your bamboo shoots and pat dry. When your garlic starts to get some color, add the bamboo shoots. I chose to add these EARLY in the stir-fry because I really wanted them to get nice and charred in the cooking process. Once the bamboo shoots start to brown you can add your green beans. Season your stir-fry with salt, pepper, ginger power and onion powder. Like I’ve said before – DON’T STIR too frequently – the direct exposure of the green beans against the bottom of the hot pan is what gets them to blister. After about 10 minutes, use 1 tB. of rice wine vinegar and 2 tB. of sesame oil to deglaze the bottom of your pan and then quickly cover your pan for 3-5 more minutes or until your green beans are cooked through.

For presentation’s sake, I chose to drizzle the 1/4 cup of tahini sauce on top of the green beans. Once I was done photographing the dish, I definitely mixed it all up together so all the tahini was evenly dispersed. Garnish with sesame seeds to complete your sesame trifecta.