Sak

Sak's Spicy Stir-fry

02.05.10 13:28
Section: Sak
Filed Under: Copyright - CC, Recipes

More chow for the curious adventurers among us. Another of the typical dishes that I subsist on.

Sak’s Spicy Stir-fry¹

Ingredients:

• 1/4 green bell pepper.
• 1/4 red onion.
• 5-7 broccoli florets.
• 6-8 carrot slices.

A few notes on vegetable ingredients: The above always make it into my stir-fry, but there are some variations.

I always use fresh broccoli anymore. It’s far tastier than frozen, and you can get some nice meaty pieces. Also, it’s one less item to have to defrost.

Mushrooms are a great choice. When I can, I use dried Shitake Mushrooms purchased from an Asian import store here in Seattle. You can get fresh Shitake Mushrooms at many markets, but they can be pretty expensive, so your common Crimini Mushrooms will work as well. If you buy the packages of pre-chopped mushrooms, go with about 6 or 8 slices per serving.

I also developed a habit of using chopped zucchini. This was inspired by a Teryiaki chicken bowl lunch that I used to eat frequently in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle. Unfortunately, a change of ownership, in the last year or so, has reduced their chicken bowls to a vegetable-free pile of meat and rice—and now disappears into the throngs of mediocre Teriyaki dishes that abound.

You can go with a number of different vegetables here, but keep in mind that stir-frying is a flash-frying technique, so softer vegetables would need to be added later in the stir-frying process so as to avoid overcooking them. Some vegetable decisions may also be related to which meat you want to use, to add flavor or take some away, depending.

Seasonings:

• 1 pinch crushed red pepper.
• 1 pinch Chinese Five-spice powder.
• 1/4 cup Teriyaki sauce.

There are a million variants of this stuff; common varieties, or more unusual ones. When strapped for cash, I go with the standard Kikkoman. My absolute favorite, however, is a brand called Soy Vay, which is nice and chunky, with crushed ginger, sesame seeds, and more—it’s amazing.

• 1 tsp. chopped peanuts.
• Oil.

I don’t use a lot of oil, just enough to slick the stuff around like a kinky game of twister. Your wok may vary, but I use a handle style that I can pick up and swing like a deadly weapon. I also have a cast-iron bowl style, that just sits happily on the burner and does its job. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I use olive oil for all my cooking. It’s mostly monounsaturated fat, which is less artery clogging, but you can go with peanut oil for a bit of extra flavor, or soy or canola if you have that. There are also variations of wok oil that are seasoned to add a bit of extra flavor. Some oils have higher viscosity than others, so the amount of oil you’ll need to use may vary depending on the oil and size of your wok. Essentially, you want enough to coat the wok about 3/4 of the way up the sides.

Meat:

• 1 dozen shrimp (pre-cooked, tail-off).

When this recipe was originally conceived, it was a shrimp stir-fry. I now also use chicken frequently, and sometimes beef. Your cooking may vary depending on what meat you decide upon. Beef will produce some fat by-product, and chicken tends to release more moisture into the vegetables, so softer, more porous veggies, such as zucchini, fresh mushrooms, etc., will need to go in later so that they don’t become soggy.

Whatever meat you choose, I go with about 1 cup per serving. For chicken and beef, I make sure it’s chopped up relatively small. The shrimp that I use is the pre-cooked, tail-off variety. You can usually find this either frozen, or in the fresh seafood section of the market fairly inexpensive. I buy it frozen, by the 2.5 pound bag, for about 7 bucks. It keeps in the freezer very well. Break out a dozen and defrost.

Rice:

• 1/2 cup uncooked rice.

This stir-fry will sit over a bed of rice, and pretty much any variety works. I vary between Jasmine rice or the fairly common Calrose rice (also known as sticky rice), depending on price. Sticky rice is easier to eat with chopsticks, if you’re looking for the full cultural experience. But then, this recipe was devised by a goofy American, so there’s nothing traditional about it. Also, rice is interesting in that the more “sticky” it is, has to do with the amount of the starch in it. Jasmine rice is less starchy, and so more loose, while Calrose rice is more starchy and sticks together. If you’re considering health issues, this can be important to know. I use about a half-cup of rice per serving (measured before cooking, which probably comes to a cup or so of cooked rice).

Preparation:

Okay, now the real fun begins; high-heat, power blasting food.

Start the rice. It always takes a while to cook rice, and is the longest part of preparing this meal.

If you’re using chicken breast, or beef, chop it up and drop it into a small bowl. For the shrimp, a dozen per serving is my usual run. If they’re already defrosted just rinse them good, pat them with a paper-towel, and drop them into a small bowl. Frozen shrimp can be defrosted quickly and rinsed at the same time with warm water. I dry off whatever meat I’m using so that the only liquid it hooks up with is the Teriyaki sauce—I like to keep my meat monogamous—and there’s less moisture added to the wok at frying time.

Whatever meat you’re using, cover it with the Teriyaki sauce to marinate, about 1/4 a cup of sauce is good.

Chop up the vegetables you’re planning on using. Separate the softer vegetables (zucchini, mushrooms, etc.) from the denser ones (onion, carrot, bell pepper, broccoli, carrot—dried mushrooms can go in with the hard veggies) on the chopping board, or into a couple bowls.

Stir-fry is all about high-heat, so put your wok on the burner as fiery red as possible, because we’re going to sear the hell out of our dinner. The problem with this is that it’s inherently dangerous. Adding oil to a heated wok can cause splattering as the cold oil hits the scalding hot surface. Adding wet items to searing oil can cause even greater splattering so be careful. Less viscous oils also have a lower smoke point. It’s stir-fry we’re talking about here, which means you’re not walking away from it to catch that big explosion on television. If you’re not standing in front of the wok, you’ll destroy more than your dinner, I promise. Anyway, it only takes about two minutes, so put the Tivo on pause.

Okay, enough caveats about playing with fire.

When the wok is nice and hot, go ahead and drop in the vegetables. For the ingredients above, I go ahead and slide all of the bell pepper, broccoli, carrot, and onion in at once. Mix the veggies around to get them all lubed up, and hit them with the crushed red pepper. You can use however much you want here, depending on how spicy you want your dinner, but I typically go with a medium dish, so I use about a pinch to a pinch and a half.

Quickly stir that together, and then blast the party with the salty-sweet goodness of the five-spice powder. I usually use a good couple pinches here. I can’t explain how much I love that powder. If it were illegal, I’d be a criminal, I swear. Mix this all together, drop in the shrimp, and keep stirring.

For shrimp you’ll know you’re done, when you see that they’ve curled up in anguish a little more than they already were since they were originally slaughtered and pre-cooked. Chicken and beef will vary some, depending. For chicken, I usually break one or two of the larger ones in half with the spoon to make sure that they break apart tenderly without effort, aren’t pink, but are still juicy. I have never timed this process, going off feeling instead, watching and stirring constantly to see that it comes out right, so I can’t tell you precisely how long you stir-fry for. It may vary depending on how thick you’ve cut your meat and vegetables, the size and heat of your wok, etc..

If you’re trying this with a few softer vegetables, such as fresh mushrooms, or zucchini, you will want to add them in after the meat, allowing the harder, denser veggies to cook up the liquid from the meat and the Teriyaki sauce.

Scoop out the rice onto a plate, and cover with the stir-fry. Sprinkle about a teaspoon of chopped peanuts over the top, and you’re good to eat.

¹ Disclaimer: Much of what I make is cheap and easy bachelor chow, but might also work well if you’re looking for a quick fix lunch or dinner that you don’t want to have to worry too much about details regarding spices and preparation. Though I sometimes fantasize about having all the equipment, spices, and other implements of destruction that are necessary for an elite kitchen experience, I’m a terminally single-dude, so by the time I think about food it’s a little too late to deal with a long prep time. I’m hungry, dammit, and so I want to eat soon. These meals are fairly healthy, however, and can be improved upon depending on whether you can afford nicer ingredients—organics and so forth. I’ve also included measurements for ingredients as a guideline, but I don’t typically measure out my ingredients to specific quantities. Much of what I’ve discovered in these recipes is a result of being hungry, putting stuff into a pan, and noodling around with the measurements over multiple cooking sessions until I get something that works for me.