Stir-Fried Sugar Snap Peas with Shiitake Mushrooms

Holy balls! There’s really not much more to say. This was definitely the easiest dish I’ve made from the book and it was delicious!

Since this is a small vegetable dish, it’s really best utilized as a side. In that spirit, I paired it up with a nice big fillet of salmon. I scored the salmon on the skin side before pan-searing it flesh side down on medium-high heat for about 3-4 minutes. Flip and cook the skin-side for about a minute. Then place into a pre-heated 350° oven for about 4 minutes.

While the salmon is in the oven, it’s time to make the Stir-Fried Sugar Snap Peas with Shiitake Mushrooms (p. 209). Omitted from the title is a generous portion of minced ginger which plays a big role in this dish. First step is introducing the ginger to the hot oil until it becomes aromatic (roughly 10-15 seconds). Then in with the mushrooms until the oil is soaked up, adding a mixture of soy sauce, chicken broth and rice wine. Cover and simmer until most of the liquid is cooked off.

I didn’t have the wok cover that you normally see, so I made due with a generic pan cover that I had handy (upper right of the picture below). This lid sat very low into the wok. It worked fine for this dish, but for recipes that have a larger volume of food I am going to have to invest in a proper wok lid.

I want you to have some sort of an understanding of how damned good this dish was. I am a big meat eater. I have protein with just about every meal. I rarely go bananas for vegetable dishes. That said, this dish was awesome! I’m a fan of mushrooms, generally, and this recipe really brought them to bear in a huge way. The shiitakes soaked up all that saucy goodness and still retained their firmness. Each bite of mushroom was a tiny explosion of flavor. And the snap peas were perfection. Bright green with a beautiful crispness to balance the mushroom. And the ginger! Man, did the ginger ever play a part. It perfectly straddled the fence between subtle and profound.

I will be making this in the future. A lot. It’s fast, easy, and delicious. What’s not to love?

What I Would Do Differently

Nothing. Do yourself a favor. Eat this.

Next on the Menu: Kung Pao Chicken

Chinese Jamaican Jerk Chicken Fried Rice

This was a bit of a departure from the Wok Wednesdays schedule. I had some leftover rice from the previous recipe and decided to try my hand at making fried rice. I love me some fried rice, so I chose the first recipe off the schedule that fit the bill: Chinese Jamaican Jerk Chicken Fried Rice (p. 262).

So what to say about this dish? The first bit consisted of marinating a couple whole chicken legs in a jerk rub and resting them in the fridge for a couple hours. I let mine go overnight because I’m hardcore. The chicken is then roasted and removed from the bone. Pan drippings are reserved for the stir-fry which is a common indicator of a great recipe.

Onion and carrots are briefly stir-fried before adding the rice. A soy sauce mixture is added along with scallions, pan drippings, and the chicken (cut into bite-size pieces). That is it.

I made a couple deviations from the recipe in the book. First, I forgot to get carrots and had to omit them. Sad face. The other is that during the initial stir-frying of the rice, I felt the soy mixture wasn’t coating the rice the way I thought it should, so I added more soy to the wok.

Overall, I thought this turned out very well. A super simple dish, although with a bit of prep ahead of time, and very quick to make. The chicken leg could easily be substituted for a multitude of leftover meats and this would still be a great go-to dish for a lazy dinner.

What I Would Do Differently

Apparently, I don’t learn my lessons the first time around. I once again deviated from the plan and I wonder what the results would be if I hadn’t. Although the dish was good, it could have been better.

• Carrots! These would have added some much needed color and texture to the fried rice. Not to be omitted.
• The extra soy sauce. I think that ultimately, with a bit of patience, the rice and soy would have come together on it’s own. Next time I’m sticking to the script.
• Try removing the skin from the legs before marinating. It could allow the jerk marinade to better incorporate into the meat, imparting more flavor. Save the skin and still roast it along with the meat so that pan drippings aren’t affected.

All in all, a successful first endeavor into fried rice in my new wok. Not perfect, but still quite good.

Next on the Menu: Stir-Fried Sugar Snap Peas and Shiitake Mushrooms

Chinese Burmese Chili Chicken

I have a confession to make. Before posting the Prologue, I had already made five of the recipes from Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge. Unfortunately and mostly due to absent-mindedness, I didn’t take pictures of a couple of them. I will be repeating those recipes at a later date and will post a full write-up here.

If you are referencing the Wok Wednesdays recipe schedule, you’ll find that I’ll be a little out of sync with it until such time as I remake those missed recipes, but for the most part you can use that as an indication of what to expect in coming weeks. But for now, on to the show.

Chinese Burmese Chili Chicken (p. 140) is the second recipe that I made with this new toy of mine. Of course, before endeavoring on this project, I had to stock up:

The arsenal.

Tools in hand, it was time to dive into what was my first stir-fry to incorporate meat. Given my initial experience with the wok (coming in a later post), I took care to ensure every ingredient was at the ready and steeled myself for the whirlwind of wok cooking.

Although it looks pretty good there, I made a few tactical errors in this dish. First was not reading the recipe thoroughly enough. The chicken is to be marinated briefly in cornstarch, oil, salt and pepper. I mistakenly omitted the salt and pepper and instead put it into the dry spice bowl with the paprika and cumin. In addition, I put the chili powder into this bowl as well, when in fact you are supposed to add it at the end of the dish.

Second, I think I used too much oil at the start before putting in the onions. I chalk this up to inexperience and the fact that I was pouring from a full bottle of peanut oil rather than from a dispenser which would have provided more control. This caused the onions to not caramelize as much as I’d like and also they would not stay up on the side of the pan when making room for the chicken. I think this also contributed to a dish that was more wet during cooking than the recipe seems to indicate. So when it came time to put in the cornstarch/water mixture for thickening, it took a lot longer for the liquids to cook off.

As a result, the vegetables weren’t as crisp as they could have been. However, the overall flavor was very nice with a mild touch of heat and made a satisfying meal served over rice.

What I Would Do Differently

Well, besides putting the right spices in the right places at the right times according to the actual recipe (c’mon, man!), there are a few things I’d change.

• Add more heat. It simply wasn’t spicy enough. I’d introduce more chili powder, cayenne, or even some red pepper flake. I like it spicy.
• Use a bit more salt than the recipe calls for. Although, this could just be a byproduct of not putting it on the chicken at the start. The extra liquid could have been a factor as well.
• Take it easy on the oil! Although heat of the stove’s range could have been a factor, I feel the stir-fry definitely had too much liquid introduced that kept it from being all it could be.

In the event that I try this recipe again, I’ll be sure to incorporate my changes and write an addendum to this post describing the results.

Next on the Menu: Chinese Jamaican Jerk Chicken Fried Rice

Prologue

The whole premise of this blog started shortly after I got a bug up my ass to buy a wok and learn how to cook with it. The wok is a kitchen tool that has simply eluded me during my various forays into cooking over the years. It is an intimidating instrument to the uninitiated. There’s the intense heat. The rapidity of the cooking. The precise timing. Not to mention the mystique of an ancient culture which seems to be looking over your shoulder.

So, having mastered (ha!) all the other tools in my kitchen, I decided it was time to learn something new. As I did some research online, I discovered The Wok Shop in San Francisco’s famous Chinatown and, through their website, the Wok Wednesdays cooking group. This group’s goal is to cook their way through Grace Young’s Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge, an award-winning book containing recipes, instruction, and snippets on the history of stir-fry.

The idea inspired me to do the same, but rather than doing a recipe every other week, I will be making an average of two recipes per week. The ultimate goal being to cook through the book within the year. I’ll be following the recipe schedule that Wok Wednesdays has been using until such time as I catch them. Then I’m on my own.

Now, with wok in hand and a copy of Grace Young’s stir-fry classic (a gift from my awesome sister!), it’s time to get started. I hope you’ll enjoy reading as I endeavor to make 2014 The Year of the Wok!