Long Beans Stir-Fried With Silk Squash and Cloud Ear Mushrooms

A brilliant combination of authentically Cantonese tastes and textures. The beans are crisp and sweet, the squash is spongy and earthy and the mushrooms are light, yet elastic with a subtle flavor. Quickly stir-fried together they make a unique dish to serve as a main curse or alongside a meat dish. Serves 2 as a main dish or 4 as part of a multi-dish Chinese style dinner. Chinese long beans are just thinner and longer than regular green beans, so regular green beans are a perfectly acceptable substitute. Silk squash is also known as luffa, dishwater gourd, and Chinese okra. It’s dark green and looks like a thin zucchini and has a sweet, but very mild taste, similar to cucumber. It’s a bit hard to come by, but zucchini and cucumber are both okay substitutes. Cloud ears are also known as black fungus, tree ears, and jelly mushroom. It has a very, very mild flavor and is used in most dishes for its texture. They’re easiest to find sold dried and packaged (looks like dried, black, wrinkled paper), and must be soaked in warm water before use. When soaked in water for about 10 minutes, it swells and resembles wavy seaweed or jelly.