I'm on a bit of a Chinese food kick recently. But this last week was absolutely killer as I was slammed with an anatomy and physiology final, so fun in the kitchen played second fiddle to memorizing portal circulation and trying to remember the Latin name for syphilis. (It's treponema pallidum, in case you were wondering, and it is a bacillus).
It all turned out for the best though, because I got an A on my final and decided to celebrate by...not even entering my kitchen and going out to Mongolian barbecue instead!
The
Mongolian barbecue is a magical place. As usual when I go out to a favorite
restaurant, I started to get a little competitive and wanted to try to recreate
the excitement at home. But my boyfriend put the kibosh on gutting our kitchen
and installing a Mongolian grill. What's a girl to do? Try a new stir fry
method of course!
Stir fry is one of my go-to meals because it's
easily customizable and difficult to ruin. Vegetables getting old in your crisper?
Throw those bad boys in a hot pan with some sesame oil and cover it all in
sriracha, mae ploy, or teryaki sauce. Done.
Although
any stir fry will probably turn out edible, there are some tricks to making a
truly great one. My top three rules for making mouth-watering stir fries are
these: prep your veggies and cook them
in batches, don't bother using a wok, and cook meat over very high heat.
Firstly,
different vegetables cook at different speeds. To get the best tender,
flavorful vegetables, cook different types separately, and combine everything
at the end just before you serve it. It sounds like more work, but it really
doesn't take much extra time, and you will really taste the difference.
Second,
you don't need a wok to create a great stir fry! In fact, you're better off
without one. Woks were designed for cooking in traditional Chinese pit stoves,
where the wok recessed into the stove and the conical sides were completely
surrounded by heat. On a conventional burner, a wok is inefficient; the flat
bottom of your trusty skillet creates a greater heated surface for you to cook on.
Lastly,
the flavor and texture of the meat is infinitely better when cooked over high
heat, taking advantage of the phenomenon known as the Maillard Reaction.
French
scientist Louis-Camille Maillard first described this in the 1900s. The
chemistry behind it is so complicated that it's actually not fully understood
today, but the basics are these: the proteins in meat are made of amino acids,
and those amino acids react with sugar to create compounds called dicarbonyls.
Dicarbonyls multiply faster than a group of bunnies listening to Marvin Gaye
until they make molecules called melanoidin pigments. With a little bit of
Latin (Melan/o:dark or black, -oid: resembling), you can see that these
pigments create the deep, brown crusts
on seared meat.
However,
the Maillard reation won't take place until the surface temperature exceeds 300
degrees, which is why boiling or blanching food will never brown it. Water
boils at 212 degrees and won't get hotter than that, so the reaction never has
a chance to work its magic. Even steam will prevent the pan from reaching the
required temperature, so make sure to leave the lid off and cook over nice, dry
heat. As a side note, don't do this in a
nonstick pan! You will ruin the nonstick coating, which is not designed to
handle very high heat. Get a nice, stainless steel skillet and never look back.
To do
this properly, you must build heat in the skillet before you start to cook. Once
you start, though, the reaction happens quickly, so you can brown a pound of
beef in under ten minutes. I recommend cooking your beef in batches so it
maintains as much contact with the hot skillet as possible. Don't crowd it by
adding too much at a time; just be cool about it and give it some room.
I have
to go now. I think I hear the delivery truck pulling up with my new Mongolian
barbecue. Hopefully I can squeeze it in my tiny apartment kitchen. Four walls
are optional, right?
xoxoxoxo
A
~Best Beef and Broccoli~
SAUCE:
1/2 cup chicken broth 1/4 cup oyster sauce
2 tbsp mirin (rice wine) or cooking sherry
1 tbsp sugar 1 tsp corn starch
STIR-FRY:
2 tbsp soy sauce 1 tsp sugar
12 oz flank steak, cut into 2-inch pieces
2 tbsp sesame oil 3 garlic cloves
1 tbsp grated ginger 1 head of broccoli
1 red bell pepper 2 tbsp water
FOR THE SAUCE: Stir all ingredients together and set aside. Easy!
FOR THE STIR-FRY:
1. Mix soy sauce and sugar. Add beef and marinate for at least 15 minutes, up to one hour.
2. Mix 1 tsp sesame oil, minced garlic, and ginger in a separate bowl.
3. Heat 1 tsp sesame oil in a stainless steel skillet over high heat until just smoking. Cook the beef in batches (discarding the marinade) for one minute. Stir, and continue to cook until browned, 2-3 minutes more. Set aside and tent with foil.
4. Add remaining 1tsp sesame oil and heat until just smoking again. Add broccoli and bell pepper and cook until vegetables begin to brown, 3-5 minutes. Add water and cook until vegetables are just tender but not too soft, 1-2 minutes more. Remove and set aside.
5. Add the garlic-ginger mixture to the skillet and cook about 20 seconds. Return vegetables and beef to skillet, along with any juices.
6. Mix your sauce up and pour over stir fry. Cook until thickened, about 30 seconds.
7. Serve over hot rice, or on its own! Don't forget the fortune cookies!
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