Open Source Tucson Stir Fry
	I bliss out on this dish 5 to 10 times per week.

It has taken me seven years of trial and error, experimentation, horrible mistakes, and near-successes to create what I believe to be the perfect stir fry...for me. There are an infinite number of ways to prepare stir fry, but this is my favorite.

My goals for this stir fry were as follows:

• It had to be reasonably healthy and moderately low in calories.
• It had to be reasonably low in carbohydrates because I do not tolerate starches well.
• It had to consist of available ingredients here in the Tucson area. I suspect that the ingredients in this dish will be available throughout most of North America, if not the world.
• It had to be loaded with flavor; a veritable onslaught of taste. It is sometimes hard to cook healthy food which meets this requirement. This dish, however, is extremely spicy, owing to its use of a combination of common herbs and a small amount of oil. This is not for those who like mild, bland, or subtle meals, though the heat can be toned down for those who find the spiciness barbaric and inhuman, as some will. To chileheads, however, this will not even register as intermediately hot. It is, however, peppery, garlicky, and gingery. I have never been partial to foods which have their flavor completely obliterated by heat. Heat is best as an accompaniment to other tastes, in my opinion.
• It had to be easy to prepare with consistent results.

Ingredients:

Spice slurry:

• One medium to large jalapeño pepper.
• 1/2 oz. nub of fresh ginger (about 2/3 the size of a golf ball)
• 12 cloves fresh garlic (1 to 1¼ oz.)
• 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon toasted (brown) sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1 teaspoon coarse black pepper (table pepper)

Substance / MEST:

• One carrot (approx. 2 oz.)
• 20-25 fresh snap pea pods (approx. 3 oz.)
• Fresh broccoli florets (approx. 5½ - 5¾ oz.)
• 4 green onions (approx. 2 oz.)
• 3-5 oz. boneless, skinless chicken breast, all fat removed

Reagent:

• One cup of filtered, spring, or distilled water

Directions:

Prepare the slurry:

The first step in this process is to create a sort of sauce, except it's not really a sauce, because it's fairly lumpy. Rather, we are making a mix of spices which will be mixed in at the end of the cooking cycle and cooked for a very short period of time. This should be prepared first so the flavors have a chance to blend together with a little help from the oil and soy sauce. This mixture can be prepared ahead of time and stored, refrigerated, in mason jars. I eat this fairly frequently so it helps for me to make this in 6 meal batches or so.

I use a Magic Bullet to do my chopping. Theoretically you could use a food processor as well. Alternately, this can be done with a sharp knife and a cutting board, which is the way I used to make it.

1. Finely chop the jalapeño. You will see many recipes involving jalapeños which suggest removing the seeds and vein (placenta) on the inside. This is pure dicketry. It is true that most of the heat in a jalapeño is in the seeds and placenta. We want to keep this. Alternately, you can remove it and be a sad little pussy who deserves to be shoved into a locker and pantsed, violently.
   
   So chop the whole thing into small chunks, including the seeds and placenta. If you are using a kitchen gadget to do this, be sure you don't turn it into paste. You want to end up with small but distinct chunks of jalapeño. Put the chopped jalapeño into a small bowl.
   
   
2. Finely chop the ginger as well. You might be tempted to shred it. Chopping finely works best. Put the chopped ginger into the same bowl as the jalapeño.
   
   
3. Finely chop the garlic. You might be tempted to use a garlic press. Don't. Garlic presses work well for certain kinds of cooking, but because we will be exposing the garlic to high heat, we want the garlic chunks to have some thickness. Pressed garlic will either burn or completely disappear altogether when it hits the hot pan.
   
   Now, there are those of you - and you know who you are - who are looking at the instruction to use 12 cloves of garlic and are doubling it, mentally. I sympathize. I recommend against doing this, however, for the simple reason that the moisture involved in adding a lot more garlic will wind up adulterating the taste of the other ingredients in a way that even I, a known advocate and serial perpetrator of the Garlic Holocaust®, find undesirable.
   
   Moisture control is very important here, and 12 cloves works best. Should you add more, you will increase the moisture content of the dish, requiring longer cooking, which will, in turn, wipe out the garlic flavor as extended cooking tends to do. It is a delicate balance because of the way we are using heat.
   
   I concede that there may well be some readers who might find 12 cloves of garlic far too much.
   
   You should know that Adolf Hitler was known to bitch constantly about garlic as well, you Nazi.
   
   If so, you might as well stop reading now; this recipe is not for you. Go watch American Idol, you prissy little bitch.
   
   Otherwise, add the finely chopped garlic to the bowl with the ginger and jalapeño.
   
   
4. Add one tablespoon of sesame oil to the bowl of spices. Sesame oil can be found in most supermarkets in the Asian section next to the soy sauce. Alternatively, it can be found at any Asian supermarket for a much lower price. You should always opt for the brown or toasted type.
   
   
5. Add one tablespoon of light soy sauce to the bowl of spices.
   
   
6. Add one teaspoon of red pepper flakes to the bowl of spices.
   
   
7. Add one teaspoon of coarse black pepper to the bowl of spices.
   
   
8. Using a fork, mash and stir the bowl of spices together until thoroughly mixed. Set the bowl aside.
   
   

Prepare the vegetables:

1. Peel the carrot, and then chop into thin discs in the conventional way. You could also use a peeler to shred the carrot, but I'm usually too lazy to do it. Put the sliced carrot into a large bowl.
   
   
2. Cut the very ends off of the snap pea pods (they tend to be rather coarse). Put the cleaned snap pea pods into the bowl with the carrots.
   
   
3. Chop the broccoli into small bite-sized pieces. There is no particular reason why you couldn't use the stems, though I don't particularly like them. I buy 3 pound bags of fresh broccoli florets from Costco. These require some additional slicing to get them to bite-sized pieces.
   
   The idea here is to have as much surface area as possible for the spices to stick to. Large floret pieces will take longer to cook and will not pick up the spices as well. Splitting florets can be messy. I recommend using a knife to slice only the stem part of the floret, and then gently pull the pieces apart. This will leave most of the head intact. If you slice the whole floret, you will wind up with a million bits of the head all over the place. This generally takes me 2 or 3 minutes total. A good guideline is to finish with broccoli pieces about the size of a golf ball.
   
   I used to cook with frozen vegetables. While obviously better than canned vegetables, they tend to have poorer texture and color than fresh vegetables, while providing few benefits. I generally go through my bags of fresh florets about as fast as they go bad, so there's really no benefit to using frozen vegetables. If you insist on using frozen vegetables, you will probably have to play with cooking times a bit.
   
   Put the chopped broccoli into the bowl with the carrots and pea pods.
   
   
4. Cut the root-bottoms off of the green onions, then chop them into one-inch sections. Put these off to the side, perhaps on a paper plate or paper towel. These will be added at the end of the cooking cycle.
   
   
5. Cut your chicken breast into very thin slices or strips. Be sure all of the fat and "ugly parts" have been removed. This is easiest to do when the chicken breast is partially frozen. I use individually wrapped chicken breast from Costco. Note that the industrial freeze-packed bags of pre-trimmed chicken breasts are often pre-treated with brine which will add to the sodium content of the dish. Fresh chicken breast will generally yield the best results, but this may not be economical.
   
   Put the chopped chicken breast aside on a small dish or in a small bowl.
   
   

At this point, you should have in front of you:

• A small bowl of mashed/mixed-together herbs, spices, oil, and soy sauce
• A plate or paper towel of chopped green onions
• A bowl of chopped vegetables
• A plate of chopped chicken breast

Fill the bowl of vegetables with water and swish for a minute to remove any soil or contaminants. Using a colander, strainer, or some other method, dump out all of the water, leaving just the clean vegetables in the bowl. It is not necessary to thoroughly dry the vegetables, but make sure as much of the water is gone as possible.

Cooking:

One problem with cooking in oil is that the ingredients tend to soak up a lot of oil, which adds to the overall calorie count of the dish. Even if you're using healthier mono- and poly-unsaturated oil (what else would you be using?), it probably never hurts to cut down the amount of added fat to lower the total calories.

I borrowed a concept from the Mongolian Grill method (though I have subsequently found that low-fat dieters have been using a similar method for years) of stir frying, which uses heat and moisture to pan-steam the food. Oil is added at the end of cooking, which coats the outside of the ingredients, and therefore serves only as a flavoring agent, as opposed to a cooking medium.

The end result is that none of the oil is "hidden" or "lost" through absorption. This means that you can use a lot less oil and get similar results. I've tried the low-fat method which doesn't use oil at all, and found the results...uninspiring. However, just a minimal amount of oil (one tablespoon) can be used to its maximum potential by using it at the end of the cooking cycle. I find this to be an acceptable compromise.

The basic method of cooking vegetables and meat this way involves adding just a small amount of moisture to the pan in "drizzles" -- approximately a tablespoon at a time. The pan should never have a "puddle" of water in it - rather, there should be scattered beads of moisture, with more water added at a fairly regular rate. A pan which is too dry will scorch or burn the ingredients. A pan which is too wet will make the ingredients soggy and dilute the taste. It requires a little bit of practice.

In the Mongolian Grill method, moisture can be added more generously owing to the very high temperature of the grill itself. Stovetops do not get nearly as hot. Therefore, it is best to be sparing with moisture, and add more as needed. If too much moisture is added, the pan will cool down, and the moisture will over-cook (and over-soften) the vegetables.

For this method of cooking, a large, wide, flat pan with high sides is preferable. Avoid using wok-shaped pans. The problem with wok-shaped pans is the moisture tends to collect at the bottom, while the sides remain relatively cool. We want even heat distribution throughout the pan so that everything in the pan cooks at a constant rate.

1. Put the pan on the burner and turn the burner to the highest setting. Allow the pan to heat up for approximately one minute.
   
   
2. Dump the chicken into the hot pan, followed immediately by the vegetables (which should have beads of moisture on them from washing). Immediately follow with a drizzle of water. Using a flat spatula, quickly stir the contents of the pan. Be sure to stick the spatula underneath the ingredients and flip them as well.
   
   
3. Every 15 to 20 seconds, flip and stir the ingredients in the pan. Add a drizzle of moisture whenever the pan begins to dry out (if the ingredients are sticking, you definitely need to add some moisture). Avoid adding more than about a tablespoon at a time. Remember, you want beads of moisture, not puddles. If you accidentally add too much, simply continue to stir and flip the ingredients until the puddle evaporates completely.
   
   
4. Continue flipping-stirring-drizzling until the colors of the vegetables brighten and the chicken is fully cooked (white all the way through). This should take approximately five minutes. Generally I flip-stir-drizzle until the chicken is uniformly white, plus one minute to be sure everything is cooked through, for a total of 6 minutes.
   
   
5. Pour the spice slurry into the pan, on top of the ingredients (try to avoid letting the spice slurry touch the hot pan itself), followed by a drizzle of water. Aggressively flip-and-stir the ingredients to coat them evenly with the spice slurry, for approximately 20 seconds.
   
   
6. Add the green onions to the pan and cook for an additional 20 seconds, continuing to flip-and-stir. You should not need to add any additional moisture. Ideally you want to evaporate all remaining moisture, leaving only a thin film of oil (from the spice slurry) in the pan.
   
   
7. Immediately turn off the heat and move the pan to a cool burner.
   
   
8. Dump the contents of the pan onto a plate or into a bowl. A bowl will keep the meat and vegetables warmer for a longer period of time. Be sure not to leave any spices behind in the pan!
   
   
9. I like to eat the stir fry with chopsticks; it slows me down a little bit. I find that a nice light beer or glass of cold water goes best as an accompaniment.
   
   

Variations:

• Adding some finely shredded raw napa cabbage at the very end and stirring it into the warm meat and vegetables will add a really nice crunch. The warmth from the vegetables and the pan will cook the cabbage slightly. You should never add napa cabbage while the burner is still on. It will turn the cabbage soggy in seconds.
  
  
• Adding shredded red cabbage mid-way through the cooking cycle is another way to add some crunch as well as color. Red cabbage is much thicker than napa cabbage and requires a little bit of cooking time.
  
  
• If the recipe above is too spicy, the best way to reduce the heat is to reduce or eliminate the black pepper and red pepper flakes. The jalapeño pepper adds a lot more than just heat, so I don't recommend skimping on it.
  
  
• To increase the nutritional content of the dish, the stir fry can be served on a bed of salad greens or spinach.
  
  
• Peanuts, walnuts, or toasted sesame seeds can be added at the end and mixed in. This is quite delicious.
  
  
• If calories and carbohydrates are not a concern, some stir-fried rice stick (or other noodle) makes a superb accompaniment. For best results, cook your noodles until al dente (or even slightly more solid than that). Then, in a pan, fry noodles in oil and a generous splash of soy sauce until the moisture evaporates and the noodles have a dark brown color; generally 3-4 minutes. You can find rice stick in most supermarkets in the Asian section. You can get it much cheaper at any Asian grocery store.
  
  
• Seitan is, as far as I am concerned, the only actual meat substitute. If you've been disappointed by tofu or tempeh, I urge you to give seitan a try. Seitan is made with wheat gluten - protein - and when cooked has a chewy texture which really does approach meat. This dish can be made completely vegan by substituting seitan for the chicken breast. What's more, seitan has little-to-no fat as well as little-to-no carbs. You can find seitan in health food stores like Wild Oats.