I love Chinese food. It’s packed with flavor and makes amazing leftovers. I started making stir fries at home in college as a go to meal. It can be cheap, quick, and only requires a hot pan (or wok!) and some pantry staples.
Tonight I made a mushroom, asparagus, and carrot stir fry with a pretty standard brown sauce + oyster sauce. Why? I had those things in my fridge and I’ve come to miss good stir fries in Utah.
Ingredients:
Stir Fry: All cut in bite size pieces. I’ve broken separated them below on how I cooked them
Asparagus and Carrots: ~6 asparagus pieces and 2 carrots cut at an angle into bite sized pieces.
Mushrooms: I only found baby bella at the store. My preference is shiitake + baby bella. Cut these into stir fry pieces. I quartered the mushrooms. Keep in mind they will shrink when cooked.
Onions, ginger, garlic:
I used half an onion cut into slices. half inch pieces of ginger
Meat: If you are using meat in your dish (chicken, beef, whatever), it’s important to marinate/silk before hand. Cut your preferred meat into stir-fry sized pieces and marinate for 30 minutes in a mixture of cornstarch/water mixture, soy sauce, and whatever flavor you want. The cornstarch will give you the silky texture you get in restaurants. Alternatively, you can use eggs whites to achieve the same result.
Sauce: Rough measurements I just throw things in a cup mix and taste as I go. The key here is using cornstarch to thicken and some combination of soy sauce, sweetener, and acid. Want orange chicken? This is the base to many of my sauces. You can use peanut butter, orange juice, lemon juice, or really anything instead of the oyster sauce and you have a totally different dish.
1 teaspoon honey
1 tablespoon (or more) of rice wine vinegar
1 teaspoon cornstarch mixed with 1 teaspoon water
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
2 tablespoons soy sauce
Thumb sized piece of grated ginger, garlic, or both!
Instructions:
Many people tell me they don’t love stir-fry because it’s just soggy vegetables. Of course they’re going to be soggy if you steam them. Stir fry should be cooked on blistering high heat and without overcrowding the pan. That’s not feasible using nonstick or a small pan. I probably don’t need to say it but the pan needs to be HOT before you put anything in it. I use a well seasoned carbon steel wok (carbon steel = cheap) or cast iron works well too. To avoid crowding, cook everything in batches.
If you’re using meat, cook this first. The goal is to sear the meat. It doesn’t need to be cooked through all the way because it’s going to rest while we cook everything else and will be added back in at the end. Once your meat is sufficiently seared (a couple minutes), remove into a separate bowl.
Cook the onions and ginger until the onions start to shrink a bit. Add the garlic in and continue to stir-fry. Remove while still a bit crunchy and fragrant.
Then, cook the mushrooms in some oil. I used avocado because of the high smoke point. When they’re cooked to just before your desired doneness (5 minutes), remove them.
Then cook the rest of the veggies. Wish asparagus and carrots, it’s okay for them to steam a little bit. If it’s not cooking fast enough I throw a bit of water in the pan to soften them up.
Add everything back in the wok and add the sauce in. Keep stirring as the sauce thickens and gets to your desired texture. Serve over rice.
Tomorrow turn the leftovers into fried rice. Cold rice in hot pan with oil. Add the veggies in with an egg, some soy sauce, and dash of toasted sesame oil at the end.