Dou Dou (豆豆)
Blistered, soy-glazed green beans tossed with a mince made entirely from three kinds of mushrooms — this Taiwanese home version of a Sichuan classic is the fastest way to turn a plain vegetable into a rice-emptying dish. 四季豆煸得鹹香軟甜，用三種菇切碎代替肉末，一盤上桌配白飯轉眼見底。
📹 Watch the Recipe
Recipe by 芭樂媽的家 Qistin Wong TV
🥘 Why This Recipe Works
乾煸 (gān biān) literally means “dry-frying” — the wok technique of pushing an ingredient against a hot pan with very little liquid until its surface water cooks off, the skin wrinkles, and the flavour concentrates. In the Sichuan restaurant original, that savoury depth comes from minced pork fried until crisp. This recipe throws the pork out and rebuilds the mince from mushrooms instead, which is exactly how Taiwanese Buddhist home cooks have solved the same problem for generations.
The mince is a three-mushroom blend, and each one does a different job. 杏鮑菇 (king oyster) is shredded then chopped fine so it keeps a springy, meaty chew. 鮮香菇 (fresh shiitake) brings the deep, almost smoky savouriness that makes the dish taste “cooked with meat” even though it wasn’t. 雪白菇 (white beech mushroom) adds a soft, faintly sweet finish, and a single piece of 黑木耳 (black wood ear) contributes the glossy, gelatinous bite that rounds the texture out. Skipping any one of them makes the mince flatter — the blend is the trick.
The second trick is how the beans are handled. Rather than dry-frying them from raw for ten minutes, they get a quick shallow-fry in hot oil to about two-thirds done, then come out to drain while the mushrooms take their turn in the wok. At the very end the beans drop back in over high heat for a final thirty-second toss with the seasoned mince and a pinch of salt. The result: beans that stay sweet and green inside, blistered and lip-smacking on the outside. 11 ingredients, one wok, about 25 minutes.
🛒 Ingredients
| Green beans (四季豆) | 300 g / 1 bunch | Snap off the ends, pull the side fibers, then cut diagonally in stacks of 4–5. Yard-long beans work as a substitute. |
| Black wood ear mushroom (黑木耳) | 1 piece | Soaked if dried. Chopped fine — adds a QQ, jelly-like bite and a little natural body to the sauce. |
| King oyster mushroom (杏鮑菇) | 1 stalk | Tear into strips first, then mince. This is the “meat” of the dish — it keeps its chew. |
| Fresh shiitake mushrooms (鮮香菇) | 2 pieces | Minced. The umami backbone; dried shiitake (soaked) is even stronger. |
| White beech mushrooms (雪白菇) | 1/3 pack | Minced. Enoki (金針菇) is a straight swap if you can’t find these. |
| Cooking oil (食用油) | 3–4 tbsp | Enough for the beans to shallow-fry, not deep-fry. Drain well after. |
| Soy sauce (醬油) | 1 tbsp | Light or all-purpose. Adds salt and colour. |
| Vegetarian oyster sauce (素蠔油) | 1 tbsp | Mushroom-based. This is what gives the dish its glossy, rounded savouriness. |
| Five-spice powder (五香粉) | 1 tsp | The signature note here — it is what makes the dish read as Taiwanese rather than Sichuan. |
| White pepper (白胡椒粉) | 1/4 tsp | Adds heat without colour. |
| Sugar (糖) | 1/4 tsp | Balances the saltiness of the two sauces. |
| Salt (鹽) | 1/4 tsp | Added at the very end with the beans, which never got seasoned during frying. |
👨🍳 Instructions
Step 1: Trim and cut the green beans
- Snap the stem end of each bean and pull the string down the side; do the same on the other edge if the fiber is tough. Very fresh, young beans will barely have any fiber.
- Line up 4–5 beans flat on the board and slice them diagonally into 4 cm lengths — the angle gives more surface area for the sauce to cling to, and stacking saves time.
- Rinse and set aside. This step is also a good time to steam rice, because the cooking itself takes under ten minutes.
Step 2: Build the mushroom “mince”
- Chop the wood ear very fine — it should look like tiny dark flecks.
- Tear the king oyster into strips, then chop into a fine, springy mince; rock the knife over it rather than pressing, so it keeps texture.
- Slice the shiitake then cut the slices across into a fine mince, and do the same with the white beech mushrooms — separate them first with your fingers so they don’t clump.
- Keep the three mushrooms and the wood ear together in one bowl: they go into the wok at the same time and fry fast.
Step 3: Shallow-fry the beans to two-thirds done
- Heat a generous pour of oil in the wok over medium-high heat — you want the beans half-submerged, not floating.
- Add the beans and fry for about 2–3 minutes, turning them so they blister evenly. They should be wrinkled and slightly darker at the edges but still firm and bright green inside.
- Lift them out and drain in a sieve or on paper. At this stage they are cooked but not seasoned — the salt comes later.
Step 4: Fry the mince and season it
- Pour off most of the frying oil, leaving about a tablespoon in the wok. Add the king oyster, shiitake, white beech and wood ear all at once.
- Spread them into a single layer and leave them undisturbed for about 2 minutes, letting the undersides turn golden before you stir — this is where the “meat” flavour is built. Then toss and fry until the moisture has cooked off and the mince looks dry-ish and fragrant, roughly another minute.
- Add 1 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp vegetarian oyster sauce, 1 tsp five-spice, 1/4 tsp white pepper and 1/4 tsp sugar. Toss quickly for 30 seconds — the five-spice should bloom immediately and smell warm and toasty.
Step 5: Flash-fry the beans and serve
- Return the drained beans to the wok over high heat, sprinkle over the 1/4 tsp salt and toss continuously for 30–60 seconds so every bean gets coated in the glossy mince.
- Taste one bean for seasoning, then kill the heat — the beans are already two-thirds cooked, so anything longer than a minute starts to soften them.
- Plate immediately and serve hot with steamed white rice. A second dish of pan-fried dried tofu or a braised egg makes it a complete dinner.
💡 Tips & Substitutions
| My green beans taste tough and squeaky | They are undercooked — green beans must be fully cooked, never served al dente. Fry them a little longer in Step 3 (until the skin wrinkles and darkens) and give them a full minute back in the wok at the end. Raw or half-raw green beans also sit badly in the stomach, so this is a step you don’t want to rush. |
| Can I blanch the beans instead of frying? | You can — blanch 2 minutes then drain and pat dry — but you lose the blistered, concentrated flavour, and the beans come out softer and wetter. If you go this route, fry the mushroom mince a full extra minute so the dish still has depth. |
| I can’t find white beech or king oyster mushrooms | Swap freely: enoki, oyster mushrooms, baby bella or even fresh button mushrooms all work. Keep to three varieties — the mix of textures and aromas is what stands in for the pork. |
| It isn’t spicy enough for me | Add 1 tsp of chilli bean paste (辣豆瓣醬) with the sauces in Step 4, or toss in 4–5 dried red chillies while the oil heats. That nudges the dish back toward its Sichuan dry-fried roots. |
| Can I make it ahead? | Best eaten fresh — the beans lose their blistered texture as they sit. Leftovers keep 2 days in the fridge and reheat well in a dry pan over medium heat; don’t microwave, it steams the beans soft. |
📊 Nutrition
Per serving (serves 2–3 as part of a rice meal)
~185 cal · Protein: 5g · Carbs: 13g · Fat: 13g · Fiber: 5g
Dry-Fried Green Beans with Three Mushrooms — 乾煸四季豆
Ingredients
Method
- Snap the stem end of each bean and pull the string down the side (repeat on the other edge if the fiber is tough). Line up 4-5 beans flat on the board and slice them diagonally into short lengths — the angle gives more surface for the sauce to cling to. Set aside.
- Chop the wood ear very fine. Tear the king oyster into strips, then chop into a fine springy mince. Slice the shiitake and cut across into a fine mince, and mince the white beech mushrooms the same way after separating them with your fingers. Keep all the mushrooms together in one bowl.
- Heat a generous pour of oil in the wok over medium-high heat so the beans are half-submerged. Add the beans and fry 2-3 minutes, turning so they blister evenly — wrinkled and slightly darker at the edges, still firm and bright green inside. Lift out and drain. They are cooked but unseasoned.
- Pour off most of the oil, leaving about a tablespoon. Add the king oyster, shiitake, white beech and wood ear all at once. Spread into a single layer and leave undisturbed for about 2 minutes until the undersides turn golden, then toss and fry another minute until the moisture has cooked off and the mince smells fragrant. Add the soy sauce, vegetarian oyster sauce, five-spice, white pepper and sugar; toss quickly for 30 seconds.
- Return the drained beans to the wok over high heat, sprinkle over the salt and toss continuously for 30-60 seconds so every bean is coated in the glossy mince. Taste for seasoning, kill the heat and plate immediately. Serve hot with steamed white rice.
Notes
🌱 Why This Dish
The name 乾煸四季豆 breaks down neatly: 乾 means dry, 煸 means to fry something in a hot wok with little or no liquid while pressing and turning it. Put together, 乾煸 is the technique that does not so much cook an ingredient as concentrate it. 四季豆 — literally “four-season bean” — is the Chinese name for the common green bean, quietly telling you that this is a vegetable that shows up in markets and kitchens all year round.
In its original Sichuan form, the dish depends on minced pork for its savoury force, which put it out of reach of practising Buddhist cooks. The substitution you see here is one of the most elegant fixes in Chinese meatless cooking: mushroom mince (素肉末). Chopped king oyster mushrooms mimic the chew of minced meat, shiitake supplies the savoury depth known in Chinese kitchens as 鮮味, and wood ear contributes a bounce that no plant protein isolate quite reproduces. Nothing is pretending to be meat on the plate — the mushrooms simply do the same work the meat was doing.
On Taiwan’s dinner tables this dish turns up constantly as a 下飯菜 — a dish whose entire purpose is to make rice disappear faster. The version here also swaps Sichuan chilli heat for a generous teaspoon of five-spice, which is the Taiwanese home-kitchen signature: warm, aromatic, faintly sweet rather than sharp. Serve it alongside a tofu dish for the protein, and you have the classic structure of a Taiwanese family dinner — one vegetable, one tofu, one bowl of rice, nothing more.
