I’ve cooked this delivious dish many times since but it is only now, almost eight years later, that I decided to revisit the recipe, and take new photos including some step-by-step images.
So, let’s start with the ingredients. Essentially, there are only four: oil, shiitake, green beans and teriyaki sauce. But because we want the best results, let me amplify the ingredients list a bit.
Oil is a combination of plain cooking oil (palm oil is our default) and sesame seed oil. Most cooks consider sesame seed oil a “finishing oil” but I have long ago discovered that cooking with it gives a stir fry better flavor and aroma.
Teriyaki sauce is not store bought. We make it by mixing together equal amounts of Japanese soy sauce, mirin and sake. Those are the only ingredients of teriyaki sauce. There is no sugar, there is no honey and definitely no maple syrup.
Fresh shiitake is chosen over dried for this recipe. More tender (less chewiness after cooking) and fresh mushrooms have a better capacity for soaking up liquid. That means the shiitake absorbs some of the teriyaki sauce during the short cooking time which makes them tastier on your plate.
The beans can be regular green beans, haricot vert or even yard-long beans. In fact, you may even substitute asparagus. Haricot vert was used here, and I rarely have string and and snip the ends of haricot vert, but these were on the mature side so I trimmed them anyway.
So, to cook this dish, you heat the two oils together, stir fry the shiitake, add the green beans and stir fry them together until everything is coated with the flavorful and aromatic oil.
Then, you pour in the teriyaki sauce, stir everything together and cook until the sauce has thickened and reduced. Ideally, the beans and mushrooms should be cooked by that time.
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon sesame seed oil
- 2 tablespoons cooking oil
- 6 to 8 fresh shiitake (caps only) sliced, diced or quartered
- 300 grams green beans stringed and cut into two-inch lengths
- 2 tablespoons light soy sauce I used Kikkoman
- 2 tablespoons sake
- 2 tablespoons mirin
- ½ teaspoon toasted sesame seeds to garnish
Instructions
- Heat the sesame seed oil and cooking oil in a pan.
- Spread the mushrooms and cook, tossing, for half a minute.
- Add the green beans, and stir fry for half a minute.
- Stir together the soy sauce, sake and mirin, and pour over the green beans and shiitake in the pan.
- Toss the shiitake and green beans in the sauce and cook for two to four minutes or until the green beans and mushrooms are done.
- Taste, add more soy sauce, if needed, sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve.
