The original stir fry was meat based, and done very quickly on a very hot steel plate. I am not keen on using loads of very hot oil in the kitchen as it is very messy. Thing is if you don’t go quite hot, you end up with a stew rather than a fry. But it is possible to produce a great vegan stir fry.
For the protein I used chicken style pieces from a shop called Iceland – in the UK. They have a wonderful range of meat alternatives!
Ingredients:
- About 350 grams of the vegan protein pieces of your choice.
- 1 large onion – medium diced
- 2 cloves garlic – finely chopped
- 1 red pepper – deseeded and thinly sliced
- 1 yellow pepper – deseeded and sliced
- 1 C green peas (if frozen then defrosted. If fresh then blanched)
- Olive oil
- Soy sauce
- Brown sugar
- Salt
- Pepper
What to do:
1 – Heat a little oil in your wok and stir fry the chunks till nearly cooked and browned. Remove the pieces and set aside, leaving as much of the oil in the wok.
2 – If necessary add a dash more oil to the wok, add the onions along with a couple of pinches of salt. Stir fry gently till the onions start going translucent. Then add in the peppers and continue stir frying.
3 – Meanwhile, in a bowl mix 2 T of the brown sugar with 2 to 3 T of soy sauce and a dash of water. You want about 1/4 to 1/3 C
4 – Once the peppers are nearly cooked, add in the garlic and continue stir frying for about a minute.
5 – Then pour over the soy sauce and sugar mix, stir in well and continue frying.
6 – Now add back the protein and add in the peas. Continue stir frying till peas are cooked and the protein re-heated. Only a couple of minutes.
Add a dash of black pepper and mix in.
Serve up.
A few notes:
1 – Stir frying uses high heat but you don’t want to burn any of the ingredients – hence the need to continually stir. It is a relatively quick cooking method.
2 – Don’ use too much liquid or you will end up with a stew. Also in this regard, the vegetables added should be dry.
3 – Woks – there are 2 types of woks – flat bottom sort that you put on an electric plate or hob, or the one that sits in a wok cradle over a gas hob.
The difference is where the heat is! In the flat bottom the heat is naturally at the bottom, while in the other the heat is much more up the sides, and the base is cooler.
In the flat bottomed one, the liquid will cook away faster. Using the other one you need to keep the ingredients more round the sides to cook and avoid them just stewing in the liquid.
(In the pics above is a flat bottomed one on an electric hob)
4 – All ingredients should be prepared in advance and lined up in the order you intend to add them. Veggies should be cut to similar sized pieces. And the slowest cooking items added first.
5 – As this is a high heat cooking method, it is preferable to use a suitable high heat oil.
Bon apetit!
