Long beans in herbs and spices

In making a richly flavorful dish, the trick is often not in the salt and sugar, but the spices and herbs. Here is a dish that I tried out, testing how the variety of spices and herbs can combine to build a rich taste for a vegetable. Long bean is a great flavor absorber.


Recipe: Long beans in herbs and spices


Ingredients:
- 10 oz long beans, cut to 2" long sticks
- 3 oz minced 85% lean beef 
- 1 clove garlic finely chopped
- 3 tablespoon (TB) Hormel vegetarian chili
- 1/2 teaspoon (tp) basil flakes
- 1/4 tp cumin powder
- 1/2 tp turmeric powder
- 2 tp pepper flakes
- 1/4 tp tarragon flakes
- dash of thyme flakes
- 2 tp onion powder
- 2 cup water


Procedure:
1. Use a pot that can just contain all the long beans. Place beef in a pan along with garlic, cumin, turmeric, onion and cook on medium heat. Break beef into fine bits and let the spices cook in its juice. When beef is cooked, add Hormel chili, basil, pepper, tarragon and thyme. Let it heat up and allow chili to cook for a few minutes until its aroma has developed. Add water. Let boil. Then add long beans to cook in the liquid for about 15-20 minutes (Note: long beans need to be cooked thoroughly to remove its toxin). Make sure the liquid level almost covers the long beans during the cooking because the long beans need to absorb the flavor from the liquid. When the long beans are cooked, take them out of the pot. Use med-high to high heat to reduce the liquid to about 1/4 cup of thick sauce. Add long beans back to the pot to be coated with the sauce. Serve hot.