green beans, fish, and peanuts
(omnivore)

recipe by m-c

This recipe plays out differently depending on whether you can start with roasted peanuts or raw ones. In the long version of the recipe (here), I start with roasted peanuts, and that's certainly the easier way. If you must start with raw peanuts, read through this material for general background, but follow the "just the recipe" directions for starting with raw peanuts.

just the recipe starting with roasted peanuts

just the recipe starting with raw peanuts

what I was looking for

A filling, easy supper dish for one.

what I made

Green beans, fish, and peanuts based on Mollie Katzen & Walter Willett's Green Beans in Crunchy Peanut Coating with Protein-of-Choice from Eat, Drink, & Weigh Less, pages 218-219.

grades for my version

healthy	A	Green beans, fish, peanuts -- eat up, it's all good for you.
fast	B	Fastish.
easy	A	Yup, easy.
cheap	B	Fish is expensive, everything else is cheap.
delicious	A-	Darn good; with a more assertive protein, it would have been an A.

yield

Serves one as a main dish.

equipment

   a nonstick frying pan
   3 small bowls

getting ready to cook

Much Asian and Asian-influenced cooking requires that you do all your prep before starting to cook. The rhythm is prep-prep-prep-prep-cook-cook-cook.

This rhythm is one of the things that makes Asian cooking more difficult then Western cooking (Asians who cook both ways say so too), where we can go prep-plop, prep-plop, prep-plop, plopping ingredients into the pot as we go.

Restaurant cooking has yet another rhythm: prep-prep-prep, half-cook, half-cook, finish, finish. Restaurant cooks call the prep-prep-prep stage "mise en place" (MEEZ ahn plahs), which means "put in place," familiarly called mise. The prep is often done by someone other than the chef.

Think about the rhythm of a recipe before you start to execute it. Many cookbooks recommend that you start every recipe by putting out your mise en place, especially cookbooks written by restaurant chefs. You might enjoy doing that, or you might hate it. I hate it, so I put out my mise only for recipes like this one, which shows its Asian influence not only in the choice of ingredients but in the style of cooking.

getting ready to cook:
into the cold pan

ingredients	M+W scaled	m-c	why?
peanut oil	4 teaspoons	4 teaspoons	no change
fresh ginger	2 teaspoons, minced	2 Tablespoons, chopped	easier [1], tastier [2]
lemon zest	¼ teaspoon	1 Tablespoon	tastier [2]
Notes
[1]	With an aromatic like ginger, you can get the same punch by substituting more of larger pieces for less of smaller pieces; just be sure the larger size pieces deliver a pleasant zing, not a mouth-punishing wallop.
[2]	Tastier to me, not necessarily to you.

   Put the peanut oil, ginger, and lemon zest in the cold nonstick frying pan and stir them around to distribute the oil evenly.

getting ready to cook:
bowl #1

ingredients	M+W scaled	m-c	why?
green beans	6 oz.	6 oz.	no change
salt	to taste	to taste	no change

   Cut the green beans into inch-long pieces and put them and the salt in bowl #1.

getting ready to cook:
bowl #2

ingredients	M+W scaled	m-c	why?
raw catfish	4 oz.	4 oz.	no change [1]
garlic	1 teaspoon minced	6 cloves chopped	tastier, healthier [2]
Notes
[1]	M+W give you your choice of half a dozen proteins to mix and match in their dinner entrée recipes; my choice for this recipe was fish, specifically catfish.
[2]	As above, you can use more of an aromatic ingredient if you chop it rough. Besides being easier, this gets more of a healthy ingredient into your body, and as everybody knows, "Garlic is good for you."

   Cut the catfish into inch-sized chunks and put it and the chopped garlic into bowl #2.

getting ready to cook:
bowl #3

ingredients	M+W scaled	m-c	why?
peanuts	raw, ¼ cup	roasted, ¼ cup	easier [1]
red pepper flakes	to taste	to taste	no change
lemon juice	1 teaspoon	1 Tablespoon	tastier [2]
Notes
[1]	M+W have you pan-roast your peanuts, which is more work than buying them already roasted -- if you can find them.
[2]	Tastier to me, not necessarily to you. I am notoriously mad for sourness. One of the pleasures of cooking for myself is having as much lemon juice as I want.

Read the ingredients on a supermarket jar of roasted peanuts to see why M+W don't call for already roasted peanuts. In my house we eat a lot of peanuts (it's my secret ingredient for introducing Mark to any new food, savory or sweet). So I've found a source for roasted peanuts that are just peanuts, not peanuts plus salt, sugar, cornstarch, monosodium glutamate, corn syrup solids, dried yeast, gelatin, paprika, onion and garlic powders, spices, and natural flavor. If you have a Trader Joe's in your neighborhood, check them out for just plain roasted peanuts.

   Chop the peanuts and put them and the red pepper flakes into bowl #3. Put half a lemon and your lemon squeezer beside bowl #3.

cooking at last

   Turn a high flame up under your frying pan. Cook the ginger and the lemon zest till you can smell the ginger, about 2 minutes.

Throw in the contents of bowl #1 (the green beans and salt). Do not mess with the green beans till they are browned and crispy on the side facing down, 4-5 minutes, then rustle them around and let them sit still again to get more browned, 2-3 minutes.

Throw in the contents of bowl #2 (the fish and garlic) and stir them in to distribute them evenly among the green beans. Don't turn the heat down. Cook till you can smell the garlic, 2‑3 minutes.

Throw in the contents of bowl #3 (the peanuts and the red pepper flakes) and squeeze the lemon directly into the pan (being careful not to burn yourself on the steam). Stir everything around to distribute it evenly. Don't turn the heat down. Cook just till everything is warmed through, 2-3 minutes.

Serve alone or on top of a cooked whole grain.

what I'd do differently next time

I love the clean, light flavor of farmed catfish (especially because I can recall the muddy kaoline taste of the wild ones my grandfather used to catch), but the flavor is too light to contribute to a dish with so many other hearty flavors. Next time I'd use salmon, or even canned tuna.

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