Stir-Fried Vegetables
Prep Time: 20 min
Cook Time: 15 min
32 servings.
Ingredients
8 tablespoons peanut oil or vegetable oil
2 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
2 tablespoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon crushed Sichuan pepper
1 red onion, trimmed and cut into 4 wedges, layers separated
1/2 pound Chinese broccoli, stems and leaves separated, each cut into 1-inch pieces
1/2 pound Chinese long beans, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
1/2 head Napa cabbage, leaves cut crosswise into 1-inch-wide strips
1-1/3 cup good-quality chicken stock or broth, vegetable broth, or water, heated
2 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons cornstarch, dissolved in 1 tablespoon cold water
4 teaspoons toasted sesame seeds
Directions
1. Heat a large wok over high heat. Add 2 tablespoons of the oil. When the oil is hot, add the ginger, garlic, and Sichuan pepper and stir-fry just until they are aromatic, about 30 seconds. Scoop out the aromatics and set them aside.
2. Add the remaining oil to the wok. When it is hot, add the onion pieces and stir-fry until they turn glossy and bright, 1 to 2 minutes.
3. Add the Chinese broccoli stem pieces. Stir-fry 1 to 2 minutes more.
4. Add the long beans. Continue stir-frying until they are bright green and glossy, 1 to 2 minutes more.
5. Add the Napa cabbage and the Chinese broccoli leaves, along with about 1/3 cup of the hot stock and the reserved aromatics. Continue stir-frying until the vegetables are all tender-crisp, about 2 minutes more. Add the remaining stock, soy sauce, and cornstarch mixture and stir-fry until the vegetables all look lightly glazed with sauce, about 1 minute more.
6. Transfer the stir-fried vegetables to a heated serving dish. Garnish with the sesame seeds and serve immediately.
Notes
Paul D Buell and Eugene N Anderson, A soup for the Qan: Chinese dietary medicine of the Mongol era as seen in Hu Szu-Hui's Yin-shan Cheng-yao, introduction, translation, commentary, and Chinese text, Sir Henry Wellcome Asian Series, London and New York, Kegan Paul International, 2000, pp. 715, £150.00 (0-7103-0583-4). The Yin-shan Cheng-yao, 'Proper and essential things for the Emperor's food and drink' (1330), which is celebrated as the "first Chinese cookbook".
Chinese Onions (scallions) are acrid in flavor, warm, and lack poison. They are good for brightening the eye and supplementing insufficiency. They regulate exogenous febrile diseases, produce sweat and remove swelling.
Garlic is acrid in flavor, warming, and lacks poison. It is good for dissipating tumorous swellings, expels wind evil and destroys poison ch'i.
White Cabbage (nappa cabbage) is sweetish in flavor, warming, and lacks poison. It is good for circulation of the bowels and benefits them. It expels vexation of the thorax and counteracts liquor thirst.
The character “chao” for the word “stir-fry” does not appear in the book Explanatory Notes for the Ancient Classics, which was completed in the 12th year of Yongyuan’s reign in the Eastern Han Dynasty (100 A.D.). In a rhyming dictionary compiled in the 6th century, the ancient form of “chao” was first seen, but it meant to stir cereal in a pot without oil to dry it. In cooking dishes, “chao” means to stir – fry meat or vegetables with seasonings in a small amount of oil or fat at the proper temperature until they are done.
The stir–fried dish was invented at the latest during the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420 - 581). Jia Sixie, an outstanding agronomist in the late years of the Northern Wei Dynasty (386 - 534), wrote the Essential Points for the Common People in 544. It is the earliest and most complete agricultural encyclopedia still in existence in China. In it he described a “duck frying method” that was done this way: “Use a fatted duck, as big as a pheasant, with its head cut off and its internal organs and tail gland removed. Wash it clean and chop it up like minced meat. Cut green onion bulbs into thin shreds. Add salt, fermented soybean sauce, and stir–fry it until it is well done. Add minced ginger and Chinese prickly ash.”
The menus of the Tang and Song Dynasties included stir–frying, but they often called the method “stewing.” The “five animal dish” eaten in early spring during the Tang Dynasty was a dish in which slices of mutton beef, rabbit, bear’s meat, and venison were stir–fried without soy sauce until they were well done, then cut into thin slivers and mixed with dressings.
The Forest of Recorded Affairs from the Song Dynasty describes “Dongpo fish” like this: “Cut the fish meat into long slivers. Preserve them with salt and vinegar for a short while, then dry them with paper. Mix spices and starch. Coat the fish slivers with the mixture, spread the slivers and rub them with sesame seed oil, then stir them in the frying pot.” This is the same dish we eat today. Many stir–fried dishes were popular in the Northern Song Dynasty, but they became even more common in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
More attention was paid to naming dishes, blending colors, and cutting skills after literati became involved in Chinese cooking. Su Shi, a famous man of letters in the Song Dynasty, Ni Zan (1301 - 1374), a famous painter in the Yuan Dynasty, Xu Wei (1521 - 1593), a famous painter and literati in the Ming Dynasty, and Yuan Mei (1716 - 1798), a famous man of letters, were all gourmets and good cooks. Through their influence, Chinese stir–fried dishes were made more artistic and colorful. For example, “five–willow twig fish” is a dish of fish stir–fried with shredded onion, ginger, winter bamboo shoots, red pepper, and winter mushrooms. Stir–fried chicken with chestnuts and shredded chicken stir–fried with winter bamboo shoots are also delicious.
Stir–frying can be used for all kings of ingredients, such as vegetables, including eggplant, cucumber, cabbage, spinach, potato, taro, celery, and bamboo shoots; wild game; seafood; domestic animals; poultry; gluten; bean curd; cooked rice; and rice cakes.
When stir–frying Chinese dishes, the Chinese wok must be used. If a flat–bottom pan was used, the taste would be different. The temperature of the oil in the pan is very important. For example, when stir–frying hot pepper powder, a skilled chef can make it as red as blood. In Sichuan, stir–fried bean curd with minced meat is a dish of white bean curd in red oil, which is very appealing to the eye. If the temperature of the oil is not well controlled, the fried hot pepper power turns burnt ochre and loses its appeal.
Ingredients for stir–fried dishes are mostly meats and vegetables cut into small sizes by mincing, dicing, slicing, shredding, slivering, and forming into balls. Even though the cooking time is short, the flavors of the seasonings permeate the dishes.