Classic Dry-Fried Pepper and Salt Shrimp

How can you go wrong with a dish that is all about the shrimp? Especially shrimp that is ready to pop in your mouth and savor. I am amazed at how few ingredients this recipe has but it is powered with so much flavor. Usually when we do a recipe I cut up some of the veggies in the morning before I go to work so I don't have too much prep when I get home. But this recipe came together fast. Now that's my kind of fast food.

I bought medium sized shrimp that were very good but next time I will spring for the larger tiger shrimp. I also added a couple of fresh chinese red chilis at the end for my husband. He likes it hot!

I served the shrimp with the vegetarian fried rice dish from The Breath of a Wok, it's my go to rice dish that I make weekly then bring a small portion to work every day to eat with fresh tomatoes or other fresh fruit.

This dish is so delicious and so easy that I am going to cook it while we are camping next week in the mountains. I have a large group to cook for and I think this will be perfect.

Kung Pao Chicken

Kung Pao Chicken, the dish we cooked this week from what is now becoming almost an every day resource for me, Stir Frying to the Sky's Edge. 


How relaxing it is to come home from a hectic day at work and dive into pulling together all of the ingredients for the dish. 


I decided to use 6 chilis and regretted that I didn't use 8. I was looking for the flavor of them to impart onto the other ingredients but with 6 it didn't seem to do that. All I had to do though, is take a small bite of the chili itself and it satisfied all my expectations for flavor and heat. 


The peanuts were such a nice additions especially since I am such a fan of crunch. I may have roasted them just a little too much but my husband loved the extra smokiness it added.


This is the first recipe from SFTTSE that I had every single ingredient the recipe called for. In the past I have substituted Basalmic for the Chinkiang and dry sherry for the Shao Hsing rice wine. It seems every time I visit my neighborhood Super H Korean grocery store I find more and more of the right ingredients. At first was daunting to be in a grocery store with a whole lot of foreign ingredients but I am becoming a lot more comfortable and find that if I take my time and compare the labels to the information from SFTTSE I can locate exactly what I need. It sure has made a big difference in the taste of the dishes that I have been cooking.


I am looking forward to cooking the next recipe...Until then!

Yin Yang Beans

Wok Wednesday Extravaganza

So as I continue my adventure of cooking my way thorough Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge on Wok Wednesdays, I totally enjoy this weeks recipe. The Yin Yang Beans wereabsolutely delicious. I was so surprised of how far the 2 tablespoons of pork went in working it's way all among the pound of green beans. I decided to pair it with Millie Chan's Chili Shrimp from The Breath of a Wok and white rice. To say the least it was a memorable meal. I am always amazed at how easy it is to create such lovely flavors with just a little effort.

Stir-Fried Sugar Snap Peas with Shitake Mushrooms

Really flavorful dish, my husband really loved it. I served the dish on rice with Stir Fried Shrimp with Garlic Sauce from The Breath of a Wok page 106, as the side dish. It was the perfect pairing. As usual, I had all of the ingredients chopped, minced and ready to fly, making it an easy and quick task once the wok was hot. I did run into a couple of things that didn't quite go as the recipe implied. For instance the mushrooms didn't absorb all of the liquid and to keep them from getting mushy I pulled some of the excess liquid out, continued on with the recipe and added the mushroom liquid back in at the end. Oh yum! There was one other thing that didn't quite work as the recipe said and I totally think it was the age of the product. The sugar snap peas took about 6 minutes to get tender instead of the 3 minutes and even then they were a little tough. But like I said I think the sugar snap peas that I used were older and therefore didn't cook up just right. I am having a problem finding local tender sugar snap peas, is it the time of year? I warmed it in the microwave the next day at work and had people asking me what that aroma was and did I really make it. LOL
Another great recipe from Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge. Wok On! GG

WokWednesday: Chinese Trinidadian Stir Fry Shrimp with Rum

Recipe at: http://www.bigredkitchen.com

This is the third recipe from Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge and I am enjoying every minute of cooking my way through this amazing cook book. I must say that I own all three of Grace Young's cookbooks and they are my favorite reading material. The amount of information that she shares hold my interest as I love hearing all of the stories about her family and the origin of the recipes contained in each of the books.
The flavor and aroma that emits from the Chinese Trinidadian Stir Fry Shrimp with Rum recipe is absolutely amazing and the taste puts it all over the edge.
I didn't know what to make of the ketchup and rum sauce since I really do not do much cooking with wine or liquor of any kind. I quickly changed my mind about using the rum because the flavor was so intense and seemed to linger on my taste buds.
I love preparing all of the ingredients, lining them up on the counter and then executing the stir frying technique. With the addition of each ingredient the aromas kept getting more and more intense.
I am always amazed at how the simple combination of ingredients that now preside in my pantry can deliver such a flavor intense dish within minutes.
I served it with sticky white rice which surely made for the perfect canvas for this work of art.
My wok is coming along nicely. I have been making it a point to cook almost everything in it. The patina is developing and the non stick surface is now present.

Wok Wednesday: Chinese Burmese Chili Chicken

Wok Wednesday: Chinese Burmese Chili Chicken


It was kind of a late dinner for our Wok Wednesday experience so I am posting my experience on Thursday.


Okay this recipe was delicious but I have to tell you that when I added the fish sauce I was having second thoughts. I literally had to put the aroma (?) out of my mind so that I could enjoy eating my efforts. The dish was delicious and I was able to easily get beyond the stigma of the fish sauce.


Because there was a lot of prep work I actually took off from work a few hours earlier then normal so I could come home and get all the prep work competed before our evening errands. When we got home from our errands all I had to do was stir fry and we all know how fast that goes. there isn't a finer site then seeing all of the ingredients lined up in the order they are added to the Wok.


I did make on slight change to the recipe. I couldn't find zucchini in the store I was in (I know, huh?) so I bought a package of Gray Squash. It looked sort of like zucchini and I love all kinds of squash, so I decided to go with it. I was pleasantly surprised that it that cooked up just like zucchini and took on the flavors of the recipe nicely, oh did I mention they were very affordable.


My husband ate the leftovers, the next best thing about stir-fry, for his lunch today and loved it.


Looking forward to the Trinidad Shrimp dish in a couple of weeks, in the meantime I am woking everything that crosses it's path. Watch out Layla (our Lab) just kidding of course.


Thanks go to Cathy for hosting the event, I loved your blog and the photos that went with it.

Layla oh Layla

Layla oh Layla what a joy you have brought to our family, human and critter alike. I can hardly believe you are turning 2 years old next month.
I'll never forget how I first heard about Layla. Actually it wasn't Layla I heard about, it was a free Labrador that I heard about. It was in October of 2010 and I was in Fawnskin Ca for a weekend of family time. Maryann, Tim and I got to the cabin ahead of the others. While we were waiting for the others to get there, we were hanging out on the deck and drinking a little wine. Tim asked me if we wanted a Labrador, he went on to tell me that one of his students had Labrador's that they were giving away and he thought they had a chocolate and a yellow lab. I couldn't believe my ears but at the same time I was thinking that we couldn't have a Labrador when we had 3 dogs at home already but it was fun to dream. When Todd got to the cabin the next day I told him about the free Lab and we both dreamed about it a little, then decided that we couldn't possibly have another dog.
After our fabulous weekend with family, we  went about our work week but we couldn't stop thinking about the free Lab so we called Tim and he got us the contact information for the family that had the Labs. We made several attempts to contact the family but we were not having any luck. We figured it was a sign that we really shouldn't be getting another dog. Well we persisted and finally set up a date to see the puppies on the way home from work.
Imagine our surprise when we pulled up in front of the house and there was another couple there looking at the dogs. Mind you, up until now we thought we were coming to look at a yellow lab but we were very surprised to see there was a yellow and a chocolate lab playing in the yard with their parents who looked like the perfect specimen of a Labrador. Luckily while we were getting out of the car the couple were getting into theirs to leave. We spent the next hour visiting with the family and playing with the puppies. Needless to say we left with a new puppy.
We toyed with different names for Layla. For a brief period we were calling her Muddy (as in Muddy Waters and she was brown after all) then we tried B.B. Queen (that shouldn't need explanation) and we finally settled on Layla. Her family had been calling her Lola and her sister Layla so she was used to hearing that name and took to it right away.
Needless to say Layla is fitting in with all of our family of critters and humans alike.
Happy Birthday lovely Layla and may we have soooo many more with you.

Wat to Wok

Since I am participating in Wok Wednesdays and cooking my way through Grace Young's Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge, tonight I am cooking from Grace Young's Breath of a Wok that I can not put down. The information is phenomenal in this cookbook. It isn't really even a cookbook but rather a book with some recipes. You have to read to believe. Any way, tonight is Aromatic Vegetarian Fried Rice pg 123 with the addition of the egg pancake.

Before I got my wok I would make stir fry's in my Le Creuset saute pan, I LOVE my Le Creuset cookware, and the stir fry actually turned out good in spite of the frozen veggies I was using.

I can't remember what triggered me to get a Wok, dang I hate when I can't remember shit (CRS, for future reference). Any way, all I know that that I had the fever, I wanted a Wok and Todd bought me one for Mother's Day, but that's another journal entry.

The stir fry's taste so much better with fresh veggies and when I make a wok full of stir fry there is always just enough left over to put in our lunches the next day.

I recently cooked a chicken lo mein dish too that had the delicious fresh lo mein noodles in it. Stater Bros sells them but I got mine from the Super H Korean market in Diamond Bar. Love that place!

As I write, my rice is chilling in the refridgerator, once it is chilled I will stir rice the rice with chicken and veggies. Yum!

Chicken Tacos!

I don't know what compelled me to blog about the chicken tacos we had last night for dinner but it might have something to do with how delicious they were.
We had decided we were going to a hike so early in the morning I cleaned up a whole chicken and smeared it down with salt and pepper, inside and out, stuffed the cavity with whole garlic, lemon and chopped onion. Then I lathered the outside of the bird with a gob of my homemade red chili mole sauce. I put the the chicken in a crock on a bed of onion and celery then added a little bit of chicken broth (also homemade) then let it cook all day while we went for our hike.
Well, you all know how good the house smells when you've had something in the crock all day, well this wasn't any different. I could smell chili, lemon, garlic and chicken. I couldn't resist sharing one of the legs and thighs with my husband Todd then I put the rest of the chicken on a platter, let it cool then refrigerated it. At this point I didn't have any definite plans for the chicken but I had a multitude of possibilities.
A couple of hours later the idea came to me to make chicken tacos and of course I had to put some black beans in the the pressure cooker to accompany the tacos. When it came time for dinner and the black beans were ready to consume, I started our taco experience by sauteeing up some green onion, orange and red sweet peppers and garlic. Then I added one of the chicken breasts that I had shredded up and let it sautee a couple more minutes. Then came a good portion of my red chili mole sauce and a little chicken broth. I let this all blend and saute while Todd fried up, yes fried, some corn tortillas. He made the best crunchy taco shells, just the way I like them.
Grab a crispy taco shell, add chicken mixture, put sharp cheddar next, lettuce and sour cream and watch out taste buds. Pow!

Stir Fry Garlic Spinach

Wok Wednesdays Willy Wok!! I am so excited to have started the adventure of  woking my way through Grace Young's Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge. I shopped for the spinach today on my lunch break at the Super H market near work. I couldn't find baby spinach so I bought the regular spinach. This was my one mistake but not so bad that it had much impact on the end product. So here we go:

I warmed up the Wok, I'm always amazed at how fast it heats up. Oh BTW I welcome any and all comments on the condition of my Wok. I've been cooking in it for two weeks now and only experience sticking once in a while and it is usually when I sear chicken or beef. Even then it isn't a big deal. I am hoping this is all part of the process..

Next I added peanut oil to the hot wok then the garlic and I was instantly rewarded with the mouth watering aroma of sauteed garlic. Wow does that garlic cook up fast. (The picture go dark on me, sorry about that.)

When I added the spinach it started to wilt almost instantly when it hit the hot wok. I stir fried for the length of time the recipe suggested then a little bit longer since I could tell the spinach was a bit tough. (Next time I will find baby spinach) The taste of this dish was delicious with some plain white rice on the side. This was a fast and easy side dish to make and one that I will use in the future.

Oh I almost forgot to show you the protein portion of our meal. This is a Grouper prepared to be cooked in parchment paper. It turned out so tender and yummy and went so well with the rest of the meal.

How fun was that? I look forward to the next recipe: Cashew Chicken.

Breakfast in my Wok

I cooked our entire breakfast this morning in my new wok.

I started with cooked 3 slices of thick sliced pepper bacon. This is actually recommended by Grace Young as a method to season your pan. I can see why too as I watched the wok start to glow with every swirl of bacon fat. Sinful!

After the bacon crisped up I put it on some paper towels to soak up some of the excess grease. I poured off most of the bacon fat the added an addition teaspoon, or so, of peanut oil in the pan. After swirling that around a bit I added some par boiled cubed red potatoes to the wok. I moved them around the pan a it then let them set to form a nice brown color.

When the potatoes were almost finished I added some green onion to the wok. Swirled them around a bit then removed the potato mixture to a bowl.

Turning the heat down a bit I added another teaspoon of peanut oil, I could have used butter here but decided to save a couple of calories plus I had butter on some corn on the cob last night and I try to ration my consumption as much as I can. Sorry, I digress, I swirled the oil around a bit and poured in some beaten eggs to scramble. 

Just when the eggs were almost finished I added the potatoes back into the wok. Stir fried a couple of minutes then served the mixture with the bacon on a whole wheat tortilla with homemade red chili mole sauce. Now that's another blog.

This was delicious and the wok did not stick to speak of. Maybe a little here and there when I was doing the potatoes but it was quickly lifted off the surface with all of the stirring action. 

My New Wok

 

I did my homework and researched the different kinds of woks and the recommended woks from a whole array of different people and perspectives. I finally made, after about 5 weeks research, made my decision and purchased a wok. This wasn't an easy thing to do with all of the different types of woks that are out there. I knew right off that I didn't want an electric wok or a non stick finish wok and the more I read I knew I wanted an authentic wok.

It only took me a couple of websites to make me realize that I wanted to purchase my wok from the Wok Shop in China Town, San Francisco. All of the reviews for the site were superior and so complimentary that I knew right off the bat that I would make my final purchase from them. Now, not only would I devour all of the information on their website but I would be surfing and goggling everything there was to do with a wok. 

Then came the daily surfing of an assortment of different businesses that offered woks. The price seemed to stay about the same from site to site so that didn't factor into my decision at all. The information was endless but oh so helpful. At the end of each session I would ponder on what I had learned and even made a list of pros and cons for the different types of woks. 

  

I went to different brick and mortor stores that carried woks, not the exact model I was looking for, but I was able to handle the different sizes and handle configurations. I might have made the decision to buy local if they had offered the exact wok I was looking for but they didn't. Unfortunately they cater to the average home cook that wants to do things the easy way, not that there is anything wrong with that. With today's hustle and bustle a lot of men and women alike don't have the time or desire to cook when they get home from work. Not so with me. I'll cook my heart out, Sunday through Monday and love every minute of it. My husband's favorite saying goes like this, "Is this Sunday?"

It didn't take me long to figure out that Carbon Steel was the material I wanted my wok to be fashioned from Then I had to decide if I wanted the regular wok, for lack of a better term, or the Pow Wok which in some of the photos featured a pocked looked surface. I still haven't found much information on the difference between the two but intend to find out somehow and possible purchase one of the pow woks in a smaller size for those side dishes.

I never realized how much there was to know about a wok and the culture behind it but I intend to continue my search for information.

Well the time came to make the purchase, Todd ordered me a 14" Carbon Steel Wok with wooden handles, one which was long and the other an "ear" handle as it seems to be called.

I couldn't be happier with my Mother's Day present. When it arrived we dived right into seasoning our new wok. After more reading on what to do this involved scouring off the sticky finish that it arrives with, rubbing it inside and out with a thin layer of oil then baking it in a 450 degree oven to reach a golden brown color. It was beautiful.

So far I have stir fried chicken and broccoli, pork and veggies, veggies and potatoes and garlicky veggies in it and everything is really tasty. It does seem to be sticking a bit so I will need to do some more reading and figure out if I need to retreat the pan to try and achieve a better patina. Rust is said to be common when the patina is not good and I do not have any rust so maybe I am trying to rush the process of seasoning to a point that it doesn't stick at all. It is said to happen over a period of time. As usual I want to perfect it immediately but I know these things come slow sometimes.

Now to reach wok hay!