Olympic Stir Fry 2008

Can you imagine winning 11 gold medals? Accomplishing what no athlete before you had done? Forever being known as the first athlete to reach that pinnacle of success? Wow. Talk about standing out in a crowd!

Tonight's culinary adventure was a crowd pleaser. Do you like Chinese food? Do you make it yourself or do you mostly order carry out? I don't know how authentic our homemade meal was, but it was meant to honor the wonderful cuisine of China. Deemed Olympic Stir Fry 2008 by my oldest child, it recognizes some of the cooking techniques of the 2008 Olympic Host Country.

I love Chinese food. All those different textures and tastes making friends with my taste buds. Prepping for the meal took the most time with lots of chopping, some marinading, methodical stir frying, and a final grand mix together with a sprinkling at the end. Whew. Just look at this gorgeous baby bok choy.

I love bok choy, especially the little baby variety. I’m sure it’s loaded with good for me vitamins, and look at how easy it is to chop up.

Don’t these green babies look terrific!

This pepper is from my garden. I just love stepping outside and picking what I need. It makes my tummy happy.

This stir fry was tummy pleasing good. I’ve been reading cookbooks and recipes all week long, and still couldn’t decide upon just one. So I did what I usually do, and you probably do this often as well, I came up with my own version and kept my fingers crossed. Tell me what you think of this.

Olympic Stir Fry 2008

Main Ingredients
3 lbs boneless, skinless chix breast, cubed into bite sized pieces
1 lb raw shrimp, medium sized
2 baby bok choy, rough chopped
1 green pepper, cut in 1” pieces
3 green onions, cut in 1” pieces
½ cup sliced mushrooms
3 “coins” of ginger
½ cup sliced almonds (I used slivers because it's what I had.)

Vegetable Oil For Stir Frying (I used canola; peanut would be great. Don't use olive.)

Marinade Ingredients:
3 teaspoons corn starch
2 Tablespoons Chinese Rice Wine (or dry sherry)

Sauce Ingredients:
1/3 cup chix broth
2 garlic cloves, minced
Couple shakes of white pepper
4 teaspoons Chinese Rice Wine (generous teaspoons)
3 Tablespoons Soy Sauce (I used tamari wheat free)
1 teaspoon sesame oil

Glaze Ingredients:
2 teaspoons cornstarch dissolved in 2 tablespoons chix broth (or water)

Instructions:

In a large bowl, combine the cubed chicken with the marinade ingredients. Set aside for about 20 minutes. Heat about 1 tablespoon of oil in a wok on med high heat. Toss in the almonds and stirring constantly, toast them for about 20-30 seconds.

Be careful because they can go from being toasted to being burnt quickly. Remove them to a papertowel lined plate. (Optional – sprinkle with salt.) Next, add another 2-3 tablespoons of oil to the pan, and working in 2 batches, stir fry the chicken. You don’t rinse off the marinade. When chicken is golden brown, remove from the wok and place in a large bowl. Add more oil if needed, and stir fry the second batch of chicken. Remove when golden and add to the 1^st batch of cooked chicken. Next, if needed add a dollop of oil to the wok, and stir fry the shrimp. Remove and place in a bowl as soon as they turn pink on both sides. Dump out any liquid in the wok. Now prepare to stir fry the ginger. In the drained wok, add another dollop of oil, and stir fry the ginger coins for about 1 minute. Remove and discard. In the gingery oil, add the bok choy and green onions all at once, and stir fry until slightly limp. Remove and place in another bowl. Add the mushrooms to the pan and stir fry. Remove and place in bok choy bowl. Combine the sauce ingredients in a bowl and pour into the wok. It will immediately boil up. Return all the cooked ingredients to the wok and toss in the sauce. In a small cup, combine the glaze ingredients and add to the wok.

The glaze thickens the sauce and gives the food a glorious sheen.

Serve immediately over rice, and sprinkle with the almonds. Prepare to make yummy sounds as you eat.

Couple things:

1. Notice the chicken and shrimp are not seasoned with salt and pepper. I was concerned that they would taste bland, but I shouldn't have worried. The sauce and all the flavors of the food, provide all the seasoning needed.

2. Prepping of the meat, shrimp, and veggies took me a good 45 minutes. It wasn’t hard, just time consuming.

3. Don’t be tempted to combine stir frying ingredients. The wok would get too full and everything would end up steaming. Have everything prepped before you begin. The stir frying goes fast. Be sure to have lots of bowls ready to place the stir fried food in.

4. I used almonds, but you could easily substitute cashews or peanuts.

My husband ate multiple helpings of this. My kids liked the shrimp the best, and had fun trying to use chop sticks! And, as usual, this was a gluten free all the way, baby.

Check out these blogs for some other great Chinese recipes. Steamy Kitchen and Rasa Malaysia. The women behind these blogs create and share awesome recipes ... I love their food!

I wonder what cuisine we will visit next? Germany? Greece? Great Britain? Any suggestions?