Greatest Hits, Volume 1: Stir Fry

Tuesday night is usually an “early” night at home. I arrived home just after 8 pm, ready to jam out dinner so we could hopefully be eating by 9. What’s for dinner, then? Stir fry! Since I haven’t defrosted any meat, this will be a shrimp stir fry, since frozen tail-on shrimp defrost quickly in a colander under some cold running water. Jim is very partial to peanut sauce, and having given him the choice of that or various other stir fry preparations earlier in the day (a brown/hoisin sauce, hot and sour, etc.), he immediately opted for peanut. Peanut sauce is one of his favorites, and is typically a leftover he’s not only willing, but eager to eat (“Can we have the leftover peanut ___ stir fry tonight?”, he’ll ask with an unusual level of excitement for a discussion of leftovers). So, shrimp and veggie stir fry with peanut sauce it is. The grain of choice tonight was whole-wheat spaghetti (brown basmati rice was the other option but we’ve had that recently, having had sushi last week).

Let me start by saying that I learned my stir fry basics from Cooks Illustrated. Years ago, when I lived with my mom in college (we’re talking 2000 or 2001 here), I began to dabble in savory cooking (desserts being my first passion). One of my favorite books was Cooks Illustrated’s Complete Book of Poultry. One of the many highlights of this book is their chapter on stir fry, which in addition to providing the basis for many tasty sauces, also laid out some basic steps and methods for making stir fry. From my reading of this “manual”, I learned the following two important tenants for making stir fry: 1) soak your protein in a mixture of sherry and soy sauce while you prep your veggies; the flavors will penetrate the protein nicely and provide great flavor to the dish, and 2) always use the “Asian Mirepoix”: green onion, garlic and ginger; Asian stir fry without these elements just seems to lack something.

The veggie mix for tonight consisted of broccoli, sugar snap peas, yellow squash (which I probably should not have bought—it being out of season and this particular selection looking a little pale—but I love it so and could not resist), cremeni mushrooms, carrot and onion. The prep for these was fairly fast: the broccoli cut into florets, the sugar snap peas put in whole, the squash halved lengthwise and then sliced, the cremeni mushroom wiped clean and sliced, the carrot cut into matchsticks and the onion halved and then cut into long strips. And the Mirepoix: I chopped about 6 green onions, reserving the greener-parts for a last minute garnish and using the whites and middle-greens for the Mirepoix; I peeled the ginger and grated it on a mircoplane (I could have diced it, but sometimes it can be a little fibrous and I was feeling both lazy and rushed—plus that tool is just the best) and about 7 (yes, 7) cloves of garlic, chopped in a totally sloppy fashion (but I’m adding them early, so they’ll practically liquefy).

While I did the prep and the shrimp soaked in their flavor bath, the pasta cooked on the stove. I would estimate that it was about 3 ounces of whole-wheat spaghetti; it doesn’t sound like much, but in the past when I’ve added what looks like 2 people’s servings of pasta to this dish, it was just too much. As I said to Jim when we agreed on the pasta amount (not wanting him to feel shorted by the amount of pasta I added, I did seek a stamp of approval on the portion): the dish is not about the pasta—it’s really about the shrimp and veggies and the pasta is a backdrop (similarly, if we served it with rice, the rice would be an accompaniment rather than a central player).

I find it to be a stress saver to have the sauce that will ultimately adorn the meal ready before the actual cooking of the meat and veggies begins. That way, at the second when you determine that you’re ready to add it, it’s there: no scrambling while the other elements of your meal overcook on the stovetop. To make the sauce, I combined about ¼ cup of the hot water from the pasta with about 2 T of natural chunky peanut butter (no hydrogenated oils or added sugars here, thank you) and about 1 T of sweet white miso. I stirred this mixture vigorously until it formed a homogenous mixture. Then, I added a dash of soy sauce (1 T?), chili-garlic paste (2 t?), hoisin sauce (1 t?), sherry (2 T?) and seasoned rice wine vinegar (1 t?). I stirred it up and we were ready to roll.

Ready to start the final dish prep. I pulled the tails off of the shrimp (missing a couple—one I found while they were cooking and Jim spotted one while the cooked shrimp waited to rejoin the stir fry). I had heated a pan with a very light spray of olive oil; I added them to the hot pan, and stirred frequently until they were curled and pink. At this stage, it is not vital that they are cooked through; I will remove them from the pan and let them sit while the veggies cook and they will get added back in toward the end with the sauce and allowed to finish cooking at that point. When they were ready, I pulled them and added the onions to the soy sauce-sherry-shrimp juice mixture that was left behind in the pan.

Over high heat, I cooked the onions, adding chicken broth as necessary to prevent burning (low fat cooks best friend—broth). Once the onions were softened, I added the mushrooms; these two things get cooked first and longest because I think that they offer the most flavor when cooked well. As I said before, I cannot eat raw onions—but the browned onions also give a nice sweet flavor to the dish, so it’s not just because of my fussy digestive system that I cook them well in this dish. The mushrooms, when well browned also impart a great deal of flavor; they give up their juices to the dish as they cook and those liquids lend much to the final product (in my opinion). When the onion and mushroom were properly browned, I added the Mirepoix and smashed the garlic and ginger into the center of the pan with my wooded spoon (shout-out to Cooks Illustrated on that one, for sure). Before the garlic could burn, I added the remaining veggies and some chicken broth. I covered the pan and allowed the veggies to steam (and here I depart from Cooks Illustrated: they do a true stir fry; I stir fry my protein, onion and mushroom, but choose to steam my veggies—a way to avoid the use of excess oil and get crisp vegetables). When the veggies were looking just underdone, I added back the shrimp, added the pasta and the prepared sauce. I stirred it around, recovered the pot and allowed it to cook a couple of minutes more until the veggies were tender-crisp. Seeing that the sauce looked a bit loose, I added a slurry of about 1 t cornstarch and 1 t water, allowed the sauce to come back to a boil and let the boil go gently for a couple of minutes to allow the cornstarch to perform it’s magic.

Almost ready to eat: now, just a garish of the remaining green onions and about ¼ cup of chopped cilantro (with extra reserved for individual sprinkling). At the last minute I chopped up some unsalted roasted peanuts for individual garnish, and we were done. Home by 8:10, eating by 9:10. And a damn fine meal, if you ask me. We know exactly what we’re eating (as opposed to ordering take out), and we’re getting high quality protein, nicely cooked veggies (read: not cooked to death) and whole grains. Man, I love getting home “early”. Now, to jam down this dinner in a race to get to bed by 10 (good luck) so I can be up in 6 ½ hours. See why I love Saturday so much? Good night.