Thursday, October 23, 2008

Our Old Favorite Stir Fry

Recently I talked about how my sister made the comment that I was fairly critical of stir fry recipes and I admitted that she is right (see this post). I mention that there is a recipe that there is an older Cooking Light stir fry recipe that we love that we used to make frequently and then for some reason have not made since I started blogging. Well, tonight I decided to revisit it to see if we still love it like we remember and in hopes of blogging about a chicken stir fry recipe that we really love. The recipe is for Kung Pao Chicken.

To make the Kung Pao chicken you start by adding a little bit of oil a non-stick skillet or a wok if you happen to have one. Then add the broccoli florets and some of the ginger and saute for a couple of minutes. Then add just a little bit of water and cover the pan and let the broccoli stem until it is done like you like it. For stir fries I like to have my vegatables slightly on the crunchy side. Then remove the broccoli from the pan and set aside. Add the rest of the oil to the pan along with the remaining ginger, crushed red pepper and chicken. Saute for a couple of minutes. While the chicken is cooking add the chicken broth, hoisen sauce, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, cornstarch, and minced garlic to a bowl and wisk it all together. Then add the sauce to the pan and let it cook for about a minute until it thickens. Then add the broccoli and toss it to mix everything together and coat it with the sauce. Serve over hot rice and top with peanuts. I did make two additions to the recipe by adding bamboo shoots and onions to it. I love both bamboo shoots and onions and think they work well with the broccoli and add a little complexity and more texture to the dish. Also, the pictures are of Russ' plate without peanuts since he doesn't care for them in his food; I on the other hand love the crunch and saltiness that they add.

I absolutely love this simple stir fry. It takes little preparation, cooks quickly and is an entire meal in and of itself. Now, if you don't happen to keep ingredients like hoisen sauce, rice wine vinegar and ginger around I don't want this to turn you off from this recipe. When I first started cooking I wanted to try different Asian recipes, but was concerned that I would end up with a fridge and pantry full of bottles of sauces that I would never use again. Well, I finally bit the bullet and bought hoisen sauce and made this recipe. I now have a pantry and fridge full of Asian ingredients that all get used frequently. Back to my review... I really enjoy the slightly sweet, yet spicy sauce in this dish. The sauce really makes this for me and is part of why I am often critical of sauces in other stir fries. I think this sauce is incredibly well balanced with a hint of sweet from the hoisen sauce and a punch of flavor from the garlic and rounded out with a kick from the crushed red pepper. We usually serve this over brown rice, but tonight we used white as we were out of brown. Both work well, but we prefer the brown as white tends to be fairly bland. Russ rates this a 9.

Since Cash has not made an appearance on the blog in far too long here are a few new ones of him including one in his Halloween costume!

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