Stir Monday

Wish it were the end of the week...then I could've called it "Stir Fry-day." *sigh*

Tonight was just a simple weeknight dinner, but it was really delicious. I was supposed to be making a cold soba noodle salad, but all of my local grocery stores chose this week to not have any soba noodles, thus making preparation of said salad pretty difficult. So I defaulted to my favorite stir-fry sauce and just tossed all the veggies together. I don't care how inept you are in the kitchen, you can totally throw this meal together. Plus, you can toss the protein right into the stir-fry, thus making a one-pot meal. Bonus.

I took cues from two stir-fry recipes for this: one from the dreaded South Beach Cookbook, and one from a truly spectacular Epicurious.com dish (pork with tangerines and bok choy--look it up and make it!). Here's how it goes down:

--Veggies, variously sliced and prepared for stir-frying
--Chinese 5-spice powder
--Sugar-free apricot jam
--Soy sauce
--Minced fresh ginger and garlic
--Scallions
--Chili oil (optional; also could use red pepper flake)

Ages and ages ago, when "cooking show" meant public television programming hosted by Julia Child, Pierre Franey, Justin Wilson, or Lydia Bastianich, I learned from Martin Yan (who, it turns out, can actually cook) that the secret to stir-frying is "hot pan, cold oil." This advice has never led me astray, so I pass it onto you now. Get your wok (or non-stick pan) really, really hot, pour in some cold or room temp vegetable oil (grapeseed oil works great for this b/c of its high smoke point), then add the aromatics: ginger, garlic, scallions. STIR.

After about 30 seconds, you should smell the aromatics. Immediately add the longest-cooking veggies; I started with green beans, trimmed and sliced into 1" lengths. Keep stirring--this is why you need to have all ingredients prepped in advance! After a few minutes, toss in some other veggies and maybe a little more oil to keep it all from burning. I used mushrooms, quartered; I let those go for few minutes, then added 1/2" squares of red and yellow peppers. Push 'em around a bit, then let them hang out. The peppers will give off so much liquid that your veg won't burn if you walk away for a minute or two.

While they are doing their thing, mix together in a small bowl some 5-spice powder (about 1 T) and the apricot jam (1/3 C, maybe??). Loosen it up with 1-2 T of soy sauce. Please do not use low-sodium soy sauce, as you need the saltiness to even out the sweet from the jam. When the veggies are about done, add the sauce and stir. Let it heat through so the jam melts a bit, toss with a small stream of sesame oil and a teaspoon or so of sesame seeds, if you want to be fancy, and serve.

On this particular occasion, I served the veggies with brown rice and very simply broiled fish. But, as I say, you can stir-fry up some thinly sliced meat or other protein, or toss in some shrimp, and it'll all work together merrily.