Stir fry looks really simple to make. You throw a bunch of veggies in a pan, maybe add in some chicken, beef, or tofu, perhaps some noodles, no problem. I remember the first time I tried to make chicken stir fry, maybe 2 years ago, and it came out one grey, bland, flavorless, steamed waste of time.
That was then, and I'm a bit wiser now, but I think you could spend a long time and a lot of practice trying to get an intense stir fry flavor just right. So I wasn't sure how this was going to come out.
It's Monday. Good night to get back in the kitchen after another weekend of eating out and about in LA. Briefly, this included: some grilled bacon-burgers that I seasoned with egg, onion powder, cumin, soy sauce, salt, pepper, and grilled with a little Roaring 40's Blue Cheese inside the burger - try it, you'll like it; Chicken and Fries from Dino's on Pico - this place, this chicken leaves your fingers orange from the spicy, vinegary marinade that the fries soak in during and afterwards to become, well, it is totally unlike anything else and only 5 bucks; and Vito's Pizza on La Cienega - Vito is from New Jersey, n'uff said. So tonight (after a serious run by the marina and along the beach - daylight savings time!!) I had a whole plan of going to Trader Joe's to get a bunch of broccoli, snow peas, peppers, etc. to chop up with some flank steak and stir fry. But wouldn't ya know it, they not only had bags of pre-chopped stir fry veggies, but pre-cut steak tips too, "guaranteed tender". For a second I'm thinking this is kinda cheating, but eh, I'm really only trying to impress myself at this point so I got over that guilt fast.
Seasoned the meat, tossed in a hot pan - took it out of the pan after about 60 seconds, a nice sear. Sauteed some onion and garlic, added the bag-o-veggies and then my sauce: chicken stock, rice vinegar, soy sauce, chili sauce, salt. A lot of recipes call for sesame oil and cornstarch that might make it thicker - I'm fresh out of both - so this sauce was gonna be more juicy than saucy. ("Don't get saucy with me, Bernaise".... movie?).
Added the meat back to the pan when the veggies seemed almost cooked. I wasn't too worried about overcooking them, cuz if anything, they'd just soak up the sauce better that way, but I did want to make sure the beef did not overcook after having had seared it to a nice sub-medium rare and letting it rest.
All in all - the dish was tasty. It needed a dash of soy sauce after plating, but the vegetables were actually a mix of cooked and slightly crunchy, since I added half of them late into the process (actually a rookie mistake that ended up working out). The beef stayed tender and pink inside, and the sauce had a great brown/tangy/lite-spice thing going on. And I saved a nice portion for lunch tomorrow that I bet will taste even better by then - just like Chinese stir fry is supposed to. Kinda like my old favorite take out from Joy Hing in Jersey. Minus the MSG of course. . . .
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