Chicken Stir-Fry

 

Awesome as a quick weekday meal, makes excellent left-overs, just kind of a pain depending on the amount of veggie prep that you're doing. If you use some good shortcuts, you can be up and running with a few minutes prep and a few minutes cooking. And its actually kind of healthy!

Let's start with the chicken. Here I have a half pound of chicken tenderloins that I marinate for an hour ahead of cooking. The marinade is basically just a mess of soy sauce. I added some garlic powder, hot sauce, sesame oil, and some corn starch (to kinda thicken it) - those are all pretty optional.

After the hour or so, drain the excess marinade off the chicken (in a mesh strainer or whatever). 

Now the veggies -- if you go all bulk with everything, your first batch is gonna take a while to prep everything. To save time on this I highly recommend looking for cleaned/cut fresh vegetable mixes at the store - Wegman's has a stir-fry mix with snow peas, carrots, broccoli and bok choy (asian cabbage) that's perfect. To this I like to add some baby corn (also fresh) cut in half, and some onion (one onion cut into petals... peel the outer layers off and cut off the ends, cut it down the middle - like the equator - then cut that half into 6 or 8 wedges like a pizza... onion petals!). Other things that are good -- celery (cut the stalks into pieces on the bias), bell pepper (in bite-size chunks), whatever you like.

Side note - frozen mixes are terrible.

Let's talk wok station! The best way to do this is with a good wok, since one of the keys to great stir fry is high-heat cooking - here I have a cast-iron wok (carbon-steel woks are equivalent), great for using the highest heat on your hottest burner. A cast-iron skillet will work the same (it just isn't as big), and stainless-steel can do in a pinch too. A non-stick skillet (or non-stick wok) can work, but you cannot take it over medium-high heat (the teflon does NOT like that... if you smell fumes it's too hot). In that case you're gonna want to extend cooking times on everything out a bit to account for the lower heat.

Get everything set up around your stove so it's ready to add. Have some cooking oil (peanut is best for high-heat) ready, whatever finishing flavors you want (I just use stir-fry sauces and some sesame oil here - soy sauce is good too), the veggies, the chicken, utensils...

Now the real key is to cook everything in stages. We'll do the chicken first, then remove it so it doesn't dry out, then add the vegetables in order of cook time (so onions first for sure - the rest used here can come in one big bunch, though technically the pea pods should go last; they're all real close). At the end, add the chicken back so it heats back up, then add our sauce and serve. 

Heat the wok up until its really freaking hot (or preheat your non-stick skillet a bit), and add just a little bit of oil (move the pan around so it covers a good chunk of space). Now add your chicken (watch out a little bit) and keep it moving as it cooks. When it turns white, give it a bit more time to make sure it cooks through, then remove it to something other then the bowl that had raw chicken in it a second ago.

Back in the wok, clean out chicken bits if necessary, add a little bit more cooking oil, and then add your onion (or if you're skipping the onion, your veggies).

When the onions soften up a little and take on some color, move them out of the center and add your next stage (here, the remaining veggies).

Cook everything for a few minutes. I've always ballparked this (it helps that the veggies aren't really that bad if you undercook them, well the corn is). The carrots getting soft is a good sign you're about done. The ones above are about done for reference.

TIP: I like to use the wok lid a bit here to create some steam inside to cook the veggies quicker (crack it open and stir occasionally when doing this).

When the veggies are pretty much done, add the chicken back so it can heat up and mix everything together. A couple minutes after that, lower the heat and add in your sauces (we don't want to cook the sauce).

Mix everything and serve! (The amounts done here made 2 servings). You can serve on rice or by itself (I like adding fried noodles).

Time: 10-15 Minutes Prep, 10 Minutes Cooking
Difficulty: 2/5
Cleanup: 3/5
Taste: 5/5