These are four-winged beans, also called four-angled beans. These beans grow easily here, climbing up fences and giving a handful of beans every 3 days or so from one single plant. Because they grow and fruit easily, veg vendors usually have a plant or two, enough for their consumption with extra to sell. This is one veg I am pretty sure is pesticide free, especially when there's only a kilo or two of it out for sale. Once in a while I grow one plant in my garden but they are so fruitful that after a while nobody wants this on the table.
This is a superb salad my friend Linda often makes. I'm not sure of the origin, it could be nyonya (Malay-Chinese). There's no cooking required as the lime juice sort of pickles the beans which have to be cut super thin, one-cell thin if possible. Yes, thin enough to mount on a microscope slide. I was out of peanut brittle so I used grounded cashew nuts. It worked just as well. You will be taken by the burst of flavors from the bunga kantan, the dried shrimps and the fish sauce, the sting from the bird's eye chilies and the tangy sweetness of the lime juice and the sugar. You will also love the crunch of the uncooked beans. YUM.
p.s. I know veg recipes and posts aren't popular. You have heard of fibre and a painful condition if you don't eat enough veg? Starts with an 'h', 3 syllables. First one to answer correctly gets a carton of prune juice. Virtual of course.
Linda's Four-Winged Bean Salad
400 g 4 winged beans*
2 heap T dried shrimps, washed well
8 (to your liking) chili padis or hot chilies
1/2 heart of bunga kantan (a ginger flower)
juice from 2 large limes
1/2 to 1 T fish sauce
1/3 t salt
1/2 T fine sugar
2 T peanut brittle, pounded until fine
* instead of beans, Linda sometimes uses pakis (wild fern, fiddleheads) and the result is more than excellent. The pakis need to be blanched briefly in boiling water.
1. Wash the beans very well, drain & pat dry with a clean towel. Top and tail. Slice into very thin slices, as thin as you can. Cut the chilies up, cut the bunga kantan heart very finely.
2. Mix everything together except for the peanut brittle. Taste and season to your liking. Sprinkle the pounded peanut brittle on top.