Tofu, Green Bean, and Crispy Shallot Salad with Black Bean Viniagrette

I did cheat and buy plain old green beans for this recipe, but if you can find Chinese Long Beans aka Yardlong Beans those are the intended centerpiece. This served as a side dish for us accompanying another main dish. Our grocery store has a pretty varied Asian section and we were easily able to locate the black bean paste, if you're unable to find it at your local grocery store, a specialty food store may carry it. I also removed the cilantro -- I gave cilantro another try recently and I found it equally terrible to the last time I tried it, it's just never going to work for me.

Recipe from Saveur.

Ingredients:

-3 tablespoons light soy sauce

-11/2 tablespoons Chinese black bean paste

-1 tablespoons rice vinegar

-1 (1") piece piece ginger, peeled and minced

-1 shallot, minced

-1 small red Thai chile, seeded and minced

-1⁄2 cup canola oil

-14 oz. Chinese long or regular green beans, cut into 2" pieces

-14 oz. tofu, pressed and cut into cubes

-1 shallot, fried

Whisk soy sauce, bean paste, vinegar, ginger, shallot, and chile in a bowl; slowly drizzle in oil and whisk until vinaigrette is emulsified. Bring a 4-qt. saucepan of water to a boil. Cook beans until crisp-tender, about 3 minutes; drain and transfer to a bowl. Add the green beans to the serving plates, top with tofu and shallots. Drizzle with vinaigrette.