Wednesday, September 17, 2014

A Simple Stir-Fry

SIMPLE STIR FRY
serves 3

The starting point for this stir-fry was a recipe for "Spicy Garlicky Tofu and Broccoli" in my favorite Asian cookbook, Jaden Hair's Steamy Kitchen's Healthy Asian Favorites.  I had picked up some beautiful snap peas at Mariano's on a drive home from Chicago, and wanted to do a simple stir-fry with what I had in the house.   Turned out that meant a half-pound of ground turkey to go with the snap peas.  So, what I cooked doesn't have either tofu or broccoli in it, but the basic outline of the recipe served me well.  Obviously, feel free to substitute other ingredients!

2 t. cooking oil
3 cloves garlic, finely minced
2 t. grated or finely minced ginger
1/2-lb ground turkey
several handfuls of snap peas*
3 T. stir-fry sauce or oyster-flavored sauce (I used House of Tsang bottled sauce, found at my grocery store)
1-1/2 T. water
1 T. white balsamic vinegar
Sriracha sauce to taste
basmati or other rice


1.  Put the rice on to cook.
2.  Chop the garlic and ginger.
3.  Mix together the stir-fry sauce, water, white balsamic, and Sriracha sauce.
4.  When the rice is about 5-7 minutes from being done, heat the oil in a wok or large sauté pan.  Add the garlic and ginger and stir-fry about 1 minute.  Add the ground turkey, and sauté until meat is no longer pink. 
5.  Add the sauce mixture to the pan and stir into the meat mixture.  Add the snap peas and stir-fry for a minute or two, until the peas are cooked but still crispy.  That's it!

*If you are using a vegetable that needs more than 1-2 minutes to cook, you'll want to pre-cook it part-way before assembling the stir-fry.  For broccoli, for example, Jaden Hair puts it a head of broccoli in 1 cup of boiling water for 2 minutes, cooking until crisp tender, and then drains and puts it aside until the last step of the stir-fry.