Fast, Fresh & Green (21 page)

¼ TSP KOSHER SALT,
and more if needed

1
In a small bowl
, combine the peanut oil, apple cider, soy sauce, lime juice, hoisin sauce, sesame oil, balsamic vinegar, ginger, and mustard. Whisk well.

2
Put the spinach leaves
in a very large mixing bowl. Put the cabbage on top of the spinach. Add the snow peas, apple, and cashews. (If making ahead, you can cover with damp paper towels, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for up to an hour.)

3
Sprinkle the ¼ tsp salt
over the salad ingredients, pour on all of the dressing, and mix and toss well (with your hands or tongs) to combine thoroughly. Let sit for a few minutes, toss again and taste. Add more salt, if necessary. Toss again and serve.

Serves 8

METHOD: Stir-frying

EQUIPMENT: 12-in/30.5-cm nonstick stir-fry pan, tongs, silicone spatula

HEAT: The stove top, cranked up

RECIPES:
Foundation Recipe for Stir-Frying •
156

Stir-Fried Carrots with Ginger, Lime, and Cilantro •
158

Speedy Stir-Fried Asparagus with Toasted Garlic •
159

Stir-Fried Baby Bok Choy with Golden Garlic and Silky Sauce •
161

Happy Stir-Fry of Zucchini, Corn, and Peanuts •
162

Stir-Fried Bok Choy and Napa Cabbage with Black Bean Sauce •
164

Stir-Fried Broccoli, Mushrooms, and Onions with Tasty Sauce •
166

Stir-Fried Swiss Chard with Pine Nuts and Balsamic Butter •
167

In my next life, I’m going to be a vegetable cheerleader and stand on the kitchen sidelines, jumping up and down chanting “Stir-Fry! Stir-Fry! Stir-Fry!” I feel like I have to make up for the poor karma I initially brought to this handy cooking technique. It’s just that I had a hard time understanding that stir-frying (at home, in a stir-fry pan) is not wok-searing (at a restaurant, in a flame-enveloped wok).

I really had no excuse, because I had learned the truth years ago. None other than Barbara Tropp, the late Chinese cooking expert, wrote an article in
Fine Cooking
magazine explaining that most home cooks are better off with a flat-bottomed stir-fry pan. Woks, she explained, are designed to be surrounded by flames—not raised above them on a hot burner. On a home stove, there’s no way for heat to climb up the sides of the wok, so the only stuff that cooks is what’s in the very bottom. (Of course if you had a built-in wok burner, you wouldn’t have this problem.) Tropp even admitted that she really liked stir-fry pans because of their generous size and shape. (They are wider and more bowl-shaped than a flat-bottom wok.)

The shape—that wide bowl—is what finally won me over. So much room to toss and flip and stir! And so much pan surface that you never have to worry that some lonesome vegetable won’t get in contact with the heat. In fact, once I realized that a stir-fry pan both browns and steams at the same time, I almost felt like I was cheating every time I cooked with it. How easy is this?, I thought. Heat up some oil, put the stuff in, stir it ’round and ’round. Add extra flavors, stir some more, eat.

Of course there’s a little bit more to it than that (see below), but the important thing is that the results are deeply delicious vegetables. They don’t have quite the crisp-tender texture of their wok cousins, but they don’t require a bonfire either.

Here are some stir-frying tricks I’ve learned:

• Buy a mid-priced nonstick stir-fry pan of average weight. Mine is a Circulon, and I love it. You don’t want an expensive stir-fry pan; they’re too heavy to lift, often have a smaller capacity than less-expensive pans, and sometimes aren’t nonstick (which these recipes were developed for). You also don’t want a cheapo, as they have inferior nonstick surfaces that deteriorate quickly and can conduct heat unevenly.

• Cut vegetables in a way that maximizes surface area for browning. For instance, I always cut broccoli and cauliflower florets in half to create flat sides that can have more contact with the pan.

• Use medium or medium-high heat to preheat the oil in your pan. An empty stir-fry pan shouldn’t be heated on high because it can adversely affect the nonstick surface. But once the vegetables go in (and the pan is quite crowded in most of these recipes), the pan temperature will drop, so you’ll then want to turn up the heat to high for a chance at the best browning.

• Use peanut oil, canola oil, or grapeseed oil for stir-frying. Butter, olive oil, and other fats have smoke points that are too low for the high-heat of stir-frying.

• The stir-fry pan is great for Chinese-style vegetable dishes (like the Stir-Fried Broccoli, Mushrooms, and Onions with Tasty Sauce on
page 166
), but don’t underestimate its usefulness for other kinds of side dishes. I cook Swiss chard in it, because I can stir-fry the stems first and wilt the leaves at the end.

• When you’re making a sauce in the pan, keep in mind that the sauce will become too thick or scorch very quickly if kept over a hot burner for long. Depending on how full the pan is (and therefore how hot it is), you may need to remove the pan from the heat just before or after adding the sauce ingredients. But since a cornstarch-thickened sauce will need some heat to activate the thickening, you might need to keep the pan over the burner for a few seconds. This is something you’ll have to gauge on your own stove with your own pan. Regardless of the recipe, put a serving dish or platter next to the stove. That way, when the dish is finished, you can quickly transfer it out of the pan to prevent overcooking.

Well, I think I’ll stop here. If I go on, I’ll risk making you suspicious that this is more complicated than I said it is. And it isn’t. So just get out your pan and start stir-frying. For fun, try the foundation recipe, as it gives you lots of options to customize your own dish. Or just dive into one of the other recipes. My favorite? The Stir-Fried Baby Bok Choy with Golden Garlic and Silky Sauce (
page 161
).

You’ll have a lot of fun with this recipe, customizing your own mix as you please. The ingredients list may look long, but the sauce comes together in a jiffy. In this foundation recipe, I’ve limited the main vegetable choices somewhat so they will all cook together in the same amount of time. But you can use more than one in the same dish, as long as your total is still about 10 oz/285 g. And I’ve added a second vegetable—a lesser amount of mushrooms, bell peppers, or red onions—because I think these aromatic vegetables not only boost the interest in a stir-fry but also provide moisture to help the other vegetables cook. As I mention in the introduction to this chapter, cooking at home in a stir-fry pan involves both direct and indirect heat, so there is a bit of steaming that goes on simultaneously with searing. You only need to stir occasionally, though.

The sauce I’ve included here will make good use of the pantry items that I’ve suggested you keep on hand (see
page 14
). It will give your stir-fry a nice Chinese-restaurant flavor, but it’s not absolutely necessary. A drier stir-fry can be tasty, so if you want to skip the sauce, consider just adding 1 tsp butter and 1 or 2 Tbsp chopped fresh herbs like cilantro, basil, Thai basil, mint, or parsley at the end. (Don’t ever skip the ginger and garlic, though, and as far as I’m concerned, the more ginger the better.) Without the sauce, you’ll probably have to add a bit more salt, too.

1 TBSP LOW-SODIUM CHICKEN BROTH

1 TBSP HOISIN SAUCE

1 TBSP OYSTER SAUCE

2 TSP FRESH ORANGE JUICE

1 TSP LOW-SODIUM SOY SAUCE

1 TSP RICE WINE OR SHERRY

½ TSP ASIAN SESAME OIL

½ TSP CORNSTARCH

2 TBSP PEANUT OIL

10 OZ/285 G YOUR CHOICE OF HEARTY VEGETABLE
(trimmed; see the table on
page 156
for choices and how to cut them)

4 OZ/115 G YOUR CHOICE OF AROMATIC VEGETABLE
(trimmed; see the table on
page 156
for choices and how to cut them)

½ TSP KOSHER SALT

2 OZ/60 G BABY SPINACH LEAVES OR BEAN SPROUTS
(optional)

1 TSP MINCED FRESH GINGER

1 TSP MINCED FRESH GARLIC

2 TBSP THINLY SLICED SCALLIONS
(white and light green parts; optional)

1/8; TSP CRUSHED RED PEPPER FLAKES
(optional)

1
In a small bowl
, combine the broth, hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, orange juice, soy sauce, rice wine, sesame oil, and cornstarch. Whisk well to combine.

2
In a large (12-in/30.5-cm) nonstick stir-fry pan
, heat the peanut oil over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot (it will loosen up), add all of the vegetables and the salt and turn the heat up to high. Toss the vegetables well with tongs to coat them with the oil. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are softened, shrunken, and browned in spots, 8 to 12 minutes, depending on the vegetables. Add the spinach leaves (if using) and stir until thoroughly combined and lightly wilted, about 30 seconds. Add the ginger, garlic, scallions (if using), and red pepper flakes (if using). Cook, stirring constantly, until the aromatics are well mixed and quite fragrant, about 1 minute. Whisk the sauce ingredients again and, with a silicone spatula, clear a space in the middle of the pan. Pour in the sauce and stir quickly and thoroughly to incorporate it and to let it thicken slightly, about 15 seconds. Remove the pan from the heat and immediately transfer the contents of the pan to a serving dish to prevent further cooking and to keep the sauce from scorching.

Serves 3 to 4

I think carrots and cilantro were made for each other. Add ginger, garlic, and lime, and you have a completely yummy carrot dish. The browning that happens in the stir-fry pan makes it that much better. This is another recipee that I could just sit down and eat all by myself for dinner, but if I were sharing, I’d serve these carrots with shrimp or grilled fish.

In this stir-fry, like many of the others in this chapter, the pan may look a little crowded when you start out. Not to worry; the carrots need a little crowding to release some steam, which will help them get tender. The big surface area of the stir-fry pan means there’s plenty of room for browning. I find it’s best not to stir too frequently, so that the vegetables have prolonged contact with the pan. In the end, some will be browner than others, and that’s okay.

You can cut the carrots two ways, either as angle-cut coins or as sticks. The coins are much easier to cut than the sticks, but I prefer the texture and look of the sticks, and I think they cook slightly more evenly. Either way is fine. Both cilantro and lime vary in pungency, so I’ve given a range and you can add as much as you like.

1 LB/455 G SLIM CARROTS

1 TBSP PEANUT OIL

½ YELLOW ONION
(about 4 oz/115 g), halved crosswise and cut into thin strips

1 TSP KOSHER SALT

2 TSP MINCED FRESH GINGER

1 TSP MINCED FRESH GARLIC

½ TBSP UNSALTED BUTTER

1½ TSP FRESH LIME JUICE

1 TO 2 TBSP CHOPPED FRESH CILANTRO,
plus sprigs for garnish (optional)

½ LIME,
cut into 4 pieces

1
Trim and peel the carrots
, and then slice them thinly or cut them into sticks. If slicing, cut them on an angle into ovals between 1/8 and ¼ in/3.25 and 6.5 mm thick. Sticks should be between ¼ and 3/8 in/6.5 and 9.5 mm thick and 2 to 3 in/5 to 7.5 cm long.

2
In a large (12-in/30.5-cm) nonstick stir-fry pan
, heat the peanut oil over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot (it will loosen up), add the carrots, onion, and salt and stir well with tongs. Turn the heat up to high and cook, stirring only occasionally and spreading out the vegetables after every stir, until the onion is limp and brown and the carrots are browned in places (they should have lost their stiffness, and some will be slightly blackened), 12 to 13 minutes.

3
Turn the heat down to low
, add the ginger and garlic, and stir until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Turn off the heat, add the butter, and toss and stir gently until it melts. Stir in the lime juice and as much of the cilantro as you like. Serve each portion with a piece of lime, and garnish with cilantro sprigs, if desired.

Serves 4

This quick stir-fry for two delivers big flavor with very little effort. Cooked over high heat in an uncrowded pan, asparagus browns quickly and takes on an alluring nutty flavor. Letting the garlic brown only deepens the flavor, and makes this dry stir-fry plenty tasty without a sauce.