Snappy stir-fries

Bringing home the bacon is one thing — knowing how to turn it into pasta carbonara is quite another. Ladies — admit it — is there anything more appealing than watching a man, at home in the kitchen, rustling up anything from the exotic to the everyday? It’s sexy, yes? And if he knows how to clean up afterwards? I see the girls nodding. Yes, I know that’s dreamboat territory, so let’s not ask for too much.
I come from a family with an equal opportunities kitchen. Each man in the family has his area of culinary expertise and his favourites. My father is the seafood expert. One brother is the badshah of beery barbeques. The other brother’s day job is actually as chef. And my husband is currently king of the kids’ lunch. It’s he who has been going on about learning how to do a few simple stir-fries.
Stir-fries are a perfect way to introduce your kitchen-phobic man to cooking. All the prep is done before, at leisure. The wok is heated — the ingredients are thrown in and tossed around and in under 10 minutes you have a meal on the table. The quick cooking and large veggie component make stir-fries also a very healthy option. They’re versatile, great as a packed lunch and as these recipes indicate — there’s a stir-fry for every kind of palate.
If your only experience of stir-fries has been heavily sauced, soy-coloured, greasy mélanges of overcooked vegetables, then you will be pleasantly surprised by these recipes. Light, delicately flavoured (a couple completely devoid of any sauce) and reasonably kitchen-virgin-proof — I think these five easy pieces are just the ticket to bring the boys to the hob. Girls, get ready to put your feet up and relax.
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Stir-fried Beef with Greens
Get great quality beef, freeze it and slice it super thin so that it cooks quickly, which is the way to get the best out of this recipe. You can use your favourite greens — sliced broccoli, celery, spinach, bok choi — just make sure they’re not overcooked and the green element will beautifully complement the meaty beef.
Ingredients:
400 gms lean beef
1 tbs soy sauce (light soy)
2 tbs rice wine or dry red wine
2 tsp Chinese five spice powder
2 tbs oyster sauce
2 tsp cornflour
½ tsp salt
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Crispy pork with three mushrooms
Veggies can give sliced tofu the same treatment as the pork for a lovely blend of textures. You don’t have to use three kinds of mushrooms either — but they form a lovely counterfoil to the crisp pork. The pork will not stay crisp long, so you need to serve this as soon as you make it — though, even slightly softened, it still has a lovely flavour.
Ingredients:
¼ kg pork
¼ cup oyster sauce
1 tbsp minced garlic
100 gm button mushrooms
100 gm oyster mushrooms
100 gm shiitake mushrooms
8 small spring onions
8 baby corn cobs (optional)
2 tbsp dry red wine or Chinese wine
½ cup of red wine
1 cup corn flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp chilli flakes
Oil for deep frying
Green bits of spring onion for garnish
Method:

Slice the pork as thinly as possible. If there is up to 20 per cent fat, it’s not a bad thing — the fat gives pork the flavour — especially in this recipe. Trim any other excess. Marinate the pork in garlic, wine, oyster sauce and chilli flakes for 2 hours outside (but in a tightly sealed container) or 24 hours inside the fridge. Soak the shiitake and oyster mushrooms in boiling water flavoured with a bit of soy sauce. Drain, squeeze, remove the stalks and slice the mushrooms into lengths. Wash the button mushrooms well and slice these also into lengths. Top and tail the baby corn and slice along the vertical into three or four pieces, depending on how thick they are. When the meat is marinated, drain it from the marinade. Leave the meat to stand in a sieve over the marinade bowl so the marinade drips back into the bowl. Toss the corn flour with the baking powder. Bring a wok full of oil to high heat. Dust each piece of pork with the cornflour so that the pork is properly covered. Start to deep fry in batches. Drain and keep aside. In a pan, heat a teaspoon of oil, add the marinade. When the marinade starts bubbling, throw in the mushrooms, the baby corn and the ½ cup of red wine. Stir briskly until the wine is slightly reduced. Spoon the mushrooms over the noodles and top with crispy pork. Garnish and serve
immediately.
1 tsp black pepper
1 inch ginger root sliced superfine
Your choice of greens
Sesame oil for cooking
Method:
Mix the soy, oyster sauce, wine, five-spice powder, 1 tsp sesame oil, salt and pepper and toss the sliced beef into this marinade. Leave in the fridge for an hour. Slice vegetables into thin strips. Heat a wok or a nice, big pan until very hot. (Don’t use a non-stick pan as it’s not recommended to heat the non-stick coating to very high temperatures). Put in 2 tbs of sesame oil and wait till it looks like it’s rippling in the heat. Using tongs (or a fork) remove the marinated beef from the marinade and throw the beef in (carefully, it will splatter a bit) and toss briskly until the beef changes colour. If you’ve cut the beef thin enough, it will cook in a matter of minutes.
Throw in the sliced ginger. Throw in the marinade, season with pepper, when it bubbles, throw in the sliced vegetables. Turn off the heat as soon as the veggies are cooked but still crisp. Serve immediately with nothing more than plain, steamed rice.
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Velvet chicken with broccoli
In this recipe as well, the chicken is coated in corn starch but this gives it a soft, gently crunchy texture which I guess is where the ‘velvet’ comes from. Some versions of this recipe also add ham to the stir-fry but we preferred it simple. You can slice carrots or mushrooms thinly to add colour to this beautiful, soy-sauceless dish.
Ingredients:
250 gms chicken breast
1 egg white
½ tsp salt
3 tsp cornstarch
½ cup chicken stock
3 tbs Chinese rice wine or dry white wine
½ tsp sugar
Pinch of pepper
1 cup broccoli flowerets
1 inch ginger sliced thinly
1 tbs chopped garlic
Oil to deep fry
Method:
Cut the chicken breast into ½ cm thin slices. Beat the egg white with the salt until it’s foamy. Add 2 tsp cornstarch and 1 tsp of oil. Now coat the chicken breasts in this and leave to stand for an hour. In the meanwhile, mix the stock, rice wine, sugar and pepper. Take 1 tsp of cornstarch, mix with cold water and beat into the stock-wine mixture. When ready to eat… heat oil in a wok till quite hot. Carefully put the sliced chicken in, slice by slice until they’re fried to a pale gold. (This will happen quite quickly. Maybe 2 minutes maximum which is fine as long as the oil is very hot.) Keep the cooked chicken aside. Now deep-fry (yes, deep-fry) the broccoli for about 2 minutes, till just before it browns. Remove. In another pan, in hot oil, sauté the ginger and garlic. Throw in the baby corn and stir for two minutes. Then pour in the stock-wine mixture. In a minute, it will start to thicken. Add the chicken and broccoli – stir, turn off the heat and serve immediately.
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Chili-Tofu Stirfry
What fun this recipe is — ready in minutes, it can be eaten plain, added to sprouts, noodles or rice or even with a nice rice pancake. It’s very subtle but the chilli adds a beautiful, deep heat that is soul-stirring. Hard-core carnivores — you can add the velvet-chicken to this recipe but the tofu has enough protein already.
Ingredients:
1 cup cubed firm tofu
1 tbs sugar
½ tsp salt
1 green chilli chopped
½ cup chopped red pepper
½ cup chicken stock
2 tbs soy sauce
2 tbs oyster sauce
1 tbs garlic chopped
1 tbs ginger grated
2 spring onions
1 tsp cornstarch
Method:
Slice the spring onions vertically into eighths. In a pan, heat some oil and lightly brown the cubed tofu. Set aside. In the same hot pan, sauté the ginger, garlic, spring onions, red pepper, chilli until they soften. Add sugar. As the onions begin to colour, add the stock, soy and oyster sauce. Taste for salt and season. Mix the cornstarch with a little cold water. Add to the pan. Let the sauce begin to thicken, then throw in the tofu cubes. When the cubes are warmed through, turn off the heat and serve.
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Stir-fried Chinese Greens
Simplest of all — this is the best side to a simple meal or a lovely snack. Across the world they use pea-shoots, sprouts, broccoli shoots, bamboo shoots… Use what’s handy but keep it in the green–yellow colour scheme.
Ingredients:
300 gms assorted greens
(bok choi, spring onion, celery, spinach)
2 cloves garlic sliced finely
2 inch piece of ginger sliced finely
2 kaffir lime leaves (optional)
4 spring onions
1 tsp soy sauce
2 tbs white sesame seeds (for garnish)
Method:
Prep the vegetables well. Wash everything. Divide the bok choi into firm parts and leafy parts. Slice all the vegetables vertically and as thinly as possible. Slice the spring onions vertically. Toast the sesame seeds until golden. Now, in a hot pan, lightly sauté the ginger and garlic (and lime leaves if using), toss in the soy sauce then throw in the vegetables in order of cooking time needed. Saute for not more than 3 minutes altogether. Remove lime leaves and serve garnished with sesame seeds.
Note: If you want a glaze, mix 1 tsp cornflour with ½ cup of water and add to the vegetables and cook for a minute until the sauce thickens. This is a great way to brighten up simple rice for the table.
Source: The Asian Age