Stir Fry

A vast majority of all stir fry ever made in a home kitchen have been terrible. That's a fact. That's just science. The culprit isn't your sauce, it isn't your veggies, it probably isn't even your technique. Odds are its that miserable stove of yours. My stove is more miserable than most. It is one of those god awful coil numbers that can't tickle a kettle in under 20 minutes. Disgraceful, I know. What happens when you try to stir fry without a crazy hot wok is you get steamed vegetables. Which is fine, but not what we are going for. What we want is that beautiful char with a crisp interior. With the assistance of some dear friends and the Internet, we found a solution. As with most of life's problems, our salvation was found in the humble grill.

2 bell peppers

4 baby bok choy

1/2 pound snap peas

2 Japanese eggplants

4 stalks of celery

2 large white onions

Shannon's Stir Fry Sauce (or appropriate substitute)

Chop everything into stir fry appropriate shapes. I like the celery in matchsticks, but an argument for just chopping it can be made. That's the easy part. Next you need to start a chimney of charcoal.

 I personally use lump mesquite coals, they burn considerably longer than briquettes but they are harder to pack into a chimney. Once the coals were completely white, we put the wok over the top, added some oil, tossed a bell pepper in there and waited for it to sizzle. And waited. And waited.

 Turns out, when you but the wok directly over the chimney, it suffocates the coals and doesn't heat up well at all. The solution? Our wok, like most home woks, comes with a stand so it can rest above the flames but still have a round bottom. We put this stand down first, then dumped the goals into it. Because we were working with lump coals nothing fell through, but if you are using briquettes just remove the top grill. This allowed us to put the wok directly on the coals, like damned fools, but goddammit it was hot. Sizzle hot. Red hot actually, but that's not the point. 

Once you get the pan crazy hot, work in small, quick batches. toss everything with a bit of oil and keep the ingredients moving. The higher up the sides the cooler the wok is, so if you see something getting too cooked move it up to the sides. 

Once we had all the veggies cooked, we put them back in the wok, tossed all the sauce on it, then let it cook for about 30 seconds, and took it inside. Served it over rice. It was hands down the best at home stir fry any of us had tasted. 

Cold Sesame Noodles

Adapted from Susanna Foo Chinese Cuisine

This is our favorite cold noodle salad. Its fantastic on warm summer days when you have a ton of vegetables you want to use up but don't want to fire up the wok. We used dried Chinese noodles, but pretty much any noodle will work. most of the steps can be completed ahead of time and then combined a few minutes before serving. While the flavors blend really well over-night, the veggies have a tendency to get very limp very quickly. The dressing is also works as a great salad dressing if you have left-overs.


 olive oil
1 pound noodles
2 garlic cloves minced
1/2 sesame paste
1/3 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon tabasco sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
1/3 cup chicken stock
1/4 chunky peanut butter
4 endives
1/2 cucumber
1/2 bell pepper
1/4 cup minced cilantro
1/4 cup toasted sesame seeds



Cook the noodles until tender according to the instructions on the packaging. Strain the noddles, toss with 1 tablespoon of oil and lay them out flat on a cooking sheet until cool. You can cover them with plastic wrap and refrigerate if you want to do this step ahead.  

Saute the garlic in 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat until fragrant. Remove from heat and add sesame paste, peanut butter, soy sauce, vinegar, tabasco and sugar. It will develop into a thick paste pretty quickly, all you are doing here is making sure everything is mixed well. Bring the chicken stock to a boil in a separate pot then add that to the paste, creating a the dressing.

Cut the bottoms of the endives, remove the leaves, and julienne them. Endives are a bit tricky because they are so crisp you risk snapping the leaves if you do not cut off a bit more of the bottom after every layer of leaves. Its hard to describe but you will see once you get going. Julienne the cucumber and the bell pepper as well.

The book suggests to toss the sauce with the noodles and then top with the vegetables and cilantro. This is great for presentation and will store much better than if you toss everything together, but if you are serving a larger group, like a pot luck, you will definitely want to toss it all together. Enjoy!