Dirty Green Beans!

This dish is probably one of the easiest ever to make.  Like most Japanese food, there are a couple or few steps but still way simple.  Bonus is - it tastes sooo good!  This is usually the first empty plate on the table!

Stuff you'll need;

• Green beans - string beans, yellow beans would work too
• Black sesame seeds
• Sesame oil
• Soy sauce 
• Mirin (optional) 
• Chili paste (sriracha - also optional)

Bring a large pot of water to a boil - while the water is boiling, clean and dice your beans - I like the segments to be somewhere between one and two inches long but it's totally up to personal preference.

Add beans to water, and cook for about 3 minutes - you want the beans to soften a bit without becoming mushy because you're going to man-handle them in a moment.

Once the beans are cooked, transfer them to a roomy bowl and set aside.

In a clean dry skillet, pour out your black sesame seeds - do NOT add oil or water or anything else, you want to dry roast the seeds.  Stir the seeds constantly - keep them moving for about 4 min.  you'll know they're ready when you start to hear them popping.  Pull the off the heat - now I use my coffee grinder for this, but you could actually either use a mortar pestle or just leave the seeds whole if you like.  I prefer them ground as I like the flavor that releases from them. 

Grind those sesame seeds into a fine powder.  Take your cooked beans and drizzle them with the sesame oil, toss them to coat - add soy sauce to taste (optionally this is where you could add in some mirin or sriracha or both) .  Once the beans are coated, dump the ground sesame right on top and stir to coat.

The trick at this point is going to be plating them and getting them to the table without eating them all standing over the sink in the kitchen! 

And that's it - you're done!

Enjoy!!