We eat a lot of stir fry around here. I probably make some version of it once a week with plenty of leftovers. It's mainly out of necessity to shake down the fridge and use up random veggies and almost empty bottles of Asian condiments. My dad's side of the family is Japanese but I wouldn't say this stir fry is based off any particular cuisine because it has quite a mix of flavors. I don't measure anything but just keep adding a little of the condiments at a time until everything is where I like it.
Here's the cast of characters. Fish sauce, soy sauce, sambal (garlic chili sauce with some acidity), chiu chow oil (not super spicy, more of a warm spice), hoisin sauce (often called Chinese BBQ sauce - you can really taste Chinese five spice in this brand), and Curry powder. On the board we have red and orange peppers, onions, carrots, garlic, ginger, and spinach.
Next we have some thawed out shrimp, green beans, and a corn starch slurry. I like to pull the tail off the shrimp before cooking since sometimes they come off in the pan and that can be a really jarring bite of food!
Started by sauteing the onions in some olive oil and sesame oil, then added the garlic and ginger.
Throw in some carrots
Next add the green beans
Then add peppers and start adding your flavors. Next I added some sake and water. The sake balances out the soy sauce and the water was just to loosen everything up a little bit and make sure there is enough liquid for a sauce when the cornstarch slurry goes in. This is the cheap-o cooking sake I use.
Finally we add the spinach and shrimp which has just been seasoned with salt and pepper. This is the only time I added actual salt since some of the other ingredients are pretty salty.
Lastly I added the cornstarch slurry which really helps the sauce cling to the shrimp and veggies. Sometimes I omit this if I want the whole dish to feel lighter. I killed the heat right after the sauce thickened up since the residual heat would finish cooking the shrimp.
Served with some hot rice and that's a wrap. I really try to incorporate a wide variety of vegetables into our diet (to balance out all the meat we eat lol) and this is just so satisfying. Even my 14 month old eats this! I really like the hoisin because it's a little sweet and really balances the curry powder. Fish sauce add SO much flavor but the end result is not fishy. I also like having two different chili flavors going on. One for heat and the other for warmth. It may seem like quite a lot of ingredients but even just a couple of these flavors combined can make a fantastic stir fry.
Here's the cast of characters. Fish sauce, soy sauce, sambal (garlic chili sauce with some acidity), chiu chow oil (not super spicy, more of a warm spice), hoisin sauce (often called Chinese BBQ sauce - you can really taste Chinese five spice in this brand), and Curry powder. On the board we have red and orange peppers, onions, carrots, garlic, ginger, and spinach.
Next we have some thawed out shrimp, green beans, and a corn starch slurry. I like to pull the tail off the shrimp before cooking since sometimes they come off in the pan and that can be a really jarring bite of food!
Started by sauteing the onions in some olive oil and sesame oil, then added the garlic and ginger.
Throw in some carrots
Next add the green beans
Then add peppers and start adding your flavors. Next I added some sake and water. The sake balances out the soy sauce and the water was just to loosen everything up a little bit and make sure there is enough liquid for a sauce when the cornstarch slurry goes in. This is the cheap-o cooking sake I use.
Finally we add the spinach and shrimp which has just been seasoned with salt and pepper. This is the only time I added actual salt since some of the other ingredients are pretty salty.
Lastly I added the cornstarch slurry which really helps the sauce cling to the shrimp and veggies. Sometimes I omit this if I want the whole dish to feel lighter. I killed the heat right after the sauce thickened up since the residual heat would finish cooking the shrimp.
Served with some hot rice and that's a wrap. I really try to incorporate a wide variety of vegetables into our diet (to balance out all the meat we eat lol) and this is just so satisfying. Even my 14 month old eats this! I really like the hoisin because it's a little sweet and really balances the curry powder. Fish sauce add SO much flavor but the end result is not fishy. I also like having two different chili flavors going on. One for heat and the other for warmth. It may seem like quite a lot of ingredients but even just a couple of these flavors combined can make a fantastic stir fry.
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