Home-Made Stir-Fry Hea-ven

After my disappointing street meal, I embarked on my quest to make a delicious stir-fry at home. An internet search generated some useful general tips and information and a basic sauce.

1. First, I learned that a wok is shaped the way that it is so that as you are cooking at very high heats, you can move food up and down the curved sides as needed to cook them more or move them away from the flame.
2. For a sauce, I would have to buy two things I've never had in my cupboard before: Chinese rice wine and cornstarch. Those, combined with soy sauce, vinegar, ginger, and garlic form the basis of a fragrant, yummy, thick brown sauce.
3. The greatest amount of work in the stir-fry is prep, as all of the vegetables and meat have to be ready to go once you start cooking as it is a high-heat method and there is no time to waste!
   

The amount of prepwork was not an exaggeration. I diligently chopped up onions, leeks, mushrooms, and zucchini, washed a handful of spinach, and pulled out some frozen peas to thaw, as well as dicing three breasts of chicken. All in all, I may have been gathering, washing, chopping, and arranging ingredients for close to an hour.

I also threw on my rice cooker.

I used Mollie Katzen's stir-fry sauce (from my new cookbook) as a guideline:

Stir-Fry Sauce

1/4 cup soy sauce
1 1/4 cups water (I'll use less water next time)
1 tbsp grated ginger
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp plus 1 tsp cider vinegar
2 tbsp dry sherry or Chinese rice wine
3 tbsp cornstarch

With those ingredients all mixed together, I was ready to go. I fired up the wok and in went the onions and leeks, followed by zucchini, then mushrooms, and lastly peas and spinach. Once the spinach was wilted, I set all of the veggies aside, and threw in the cubed chicken. I wish I had pounded them flat first, like they frequently do in Chinese restaurants, as that meat is always so tender, but I forgot. The nubbins of meat ended up a little bit tough...so perhaps the highest of the high heat is too much for them? But they were nicely browned on the outside.

Once the chicken was almost cooked through, I poured the sauce in the pan for it to thicken. It didn't quite thicken to a glistening restaurant-quality sauce, which is why I will reduce the water next time, and perhaps leave the sauce on for more than three or four minutes. But it was mighty tasty.