How to Stir-fry Chinese Marinated Meat with Mixed Vegetable

You can just serve this one dish with rice for your dinner!

By ChefSarawak@NZ Chef Si

Please note that I am very health conscious I will come to an extent using the alternative ingredients which I think will help my guts. There is no MSG, chicken essence added to my recipes in the following shown stir-frying video.

Why do you think your stir-fry vegetable is not as nice as the what you ate in a Chinese restaurant?

Are you thinking like your kids that restaurant food is much better than mommy’s home-cooked food?

Yes, you can cook as nice as what a Chinese restaurant stir-fry vegetable provided you get your MSG, chicken essence, wine and lots of oil ready, but do you want to get thirsty in the next two hours?

To stir-fry Chinese vegetable, high heat is necessary, no harm when flambe happened the moment you added the wine, but make sure your fire alarm won't get activated.

One thing about home-cooked stir-fry vegetable is it could be organic vegetable harvested right from your backyard or organic vegetable given by your neighbor or friends. If you use the organic meat for your home cooking, you will discover how tasty and sweet the meat is.

Why do you think your marinated meat is never as juicy and soft like the restaurant served?

Why do you think your vegetable turn yellow too quickly?

Your wok size is important to determine how much food you are going to stir-fry in there!

Here are points and tips for marinating meat and stir-fry vegetable for around two servings portion, to save time for washing, just place the cut meat directly to the wok or stir-fry skillet/pan. Marinate your cut meat inside the wok directly. Push the marinated meat aside before you start to heat the oil, when the oil is getting hot, seal the marinated meat.

Marinating juicy meat:

1.  Cut a handful size of your organic meat into bite size, either in slices, julienne or macedoine.

2.  Mince 20g of meat, the best with a little fat attached

3.  Add 20ml water into the cut meat and minced meat, massage the meat until the meat “drinks the water.

4.   Add the water for another one or two more round depend on how “thirsty’ is the meat.

5.   Let the meat absorb the water completely, then you add in 1 tbsp of sesame oil, mix well

6.  Then add 1 tsp of corn starch (some chefs would add egg white to make the meat more tender, but majority of Chinese chefs would add sodium carbonate, corn starch and egg white to tenderize meat) ¼ tsp Korean fermented chili powder, ½ tsp of white wine vinegar, 1 tsp of dried red yeast rice wine (or any quality dried rice wine), 1 tbsp of Japanese Mirin, a pinch of black pepper powder, 1 tbsp of Japanese/Korean made/homemade miso paste.

Vegetable:

Tips to stir-fry vegetable: You just need a combination of around 3 to 5 different colored vegetables. The harder vegetable like carrot and French bean should be stir-fried first and bean sprout or spring onion should add at the last, have a quick stir then turn off the heat. You can wash your vegetables, drip dry on a larger tray, separate each vegetable as their cooking time are all different.

1.   1 big palm size cauliflower, cut into florets (Make sure enough for two servings portion)

2.  1 small carrot, sliced

3.  5 garlic chive flower stems, cut into an inch long

4.   4 medium size mushrooms. Any kind of mushroom, sliced

5.   ¼ any choice of capsicum, cut equal size to garlic chive flower stem

6.  2 cloves garlic, mash with the back of a knife, then mince finely

7.   4 tbsp vegetable oil (Use less oil if you use non-stick wok)

8.  TT ground black pepper and salt (may not need it as miso is salty enough

9.   2 tbsp of dried rice wine

10. Marinated meat

11. 100ml reduce meat stock or meat jus mixed with ¼ tsp of tapioca starch

Method:

What Chinese restaurant chefs do to the meat and vegetable is they would always deep fry them first quickly before stir-frying, or an alternative is blanching them first quickly before stir-frying. The purpose of this “blanching” in a limited timing is to inactivate the enzymes quick with a high temperature (but not too high, there is a certain degree and timing for certain vegetables, like cauliflower, is 100C boiling for 2 minutes), or else these enzymes could turn the vegetable to black colour later. Dipping in icy water after blanching is to prevent the vegetable from being overcooked.

Anyhow, if you eat your stir-fry vegetable right away, you don’t need to worry much, just keep stir-frying in a simple and less dangerous way without a pot of hot oil or boiling water, especially if your little toddler is screaming and wanting to get into the kitchen. But make sure your wok or skillet is very hot (but not burning)

1.  Heat up 4 tbsp of oil, seal the marinated meat, add carrot and capsicum, stir- fry for 30 seconds, add minced garlic. Note: You can take away some oil after sealing if it is the non-stick wok.  During the stir-frying, if you feel it’s too dry, you can always add little hot stock gradually but never too much.
2.   Add cauliflower, use two spatulas to stir-fry, try to incorporate air during stir-frying or you "rock" your wok or skillet/frying pan.
3.  Add mushroom and garlic chive flower stem
4.  Lastly, deglaze with rice wine
5.  Check seasoning with black pepper and salt
6.  Serve with rice
7.  Bon appetite!

How to Successfully Stir-Fry Quick but Healthier and Cheaper Chinese Fried Rice

Apply science to break the traditional kitchen myths (Smart mise en place to save time and stir-fry at ease)

By Chef Sarawak@NZ Chef Si

      Science is hardly involved in a Chinese kitchen due to most of their chefs ended up there didn’t like to study and most of them hated science even if they had been to school.

      Why female chefs are hardly being accepted in a Chinese kitchen run by a Chinese chauvinist male pig? It is mainly because science is not being accepted by both of them, a male chef would criticize that a female chef is physically unfitted to rock a wok or to shake off the excess water from the blanched noodle, and the Chinese female chefs would agree and admit it silently but they never thought of applying science in Chinese kitchen actually could make them cook smarter than most male chefs who only believe in using a buffalo to plough the field rather than using a ploughing machine!

      Worst are those young, haughty and ignorant Chinese who thought they knew everything who were trained in western culinary schools but the moment they entered a Chinese kitchen they would deliberately go against any western culinary teaching and skills, they never thought of merging and using the best of western and oriental culinary knowledge, skills and application into their practice although they are now staying in a western country.

      Asian chefs would shake off the excess water of blanching noodle by shaking the spider strainer, and when most female chefs couldn’t do it, the male chefs in the kitchen would never figure out an alternative way for their female kitchen hands or female chefs, any dexterity connected with arms never could defeat me as I was a trained concert pianist, the weight from my back through my arms could actually accidentally injure a person severely from my subconscious reaction if I got ambush. But I just loved to follow French chefs ‘method by getting a tong to hit the spider strainer, except I used two giant chop sticks to hit the rim on the spider strainer like a drummer’s tremolo, that was the only sound could break the silence when I got really busy in a kitchen. And my head chef didn’t like it, well neither I like his mouth moved like a drummer's tremolo when I got so busy. He said it’s a Chinese kitchen "they don’t do it in such a way", well is Chinese Malaysian is not a Chinese for the mainland Chinese?  So this was how a Chinese chef trained in western culinary school but went against any western practice in his kitchen even if it worked better than shaking their spider strainer in much slower speed and the water being drained in much slower speed.

      I started to change the traditional way of Chinese stir-fry rice’s preparation about 8 years ago when the little notorious AGS pigeon boy began to attend primary school in Malaysia. As Malaysian school starts before 7 in the morning, I usually had to get up at 5:30 am prepared his breakfast and lunch box, Chinese fried rice was a good choice for lunch box as long as the mise en place was done properly, thus the time I learned fried rice shouldn’t be prepared step by step in a traditional way. It took me more than a week to convince the Chinese head chef to change his traditional way, and I could only convince him whenever he complaint either the cooked rice was too soft and sticky, or the fried rice took him too long to stir-fry. From my experience, it’s always easier to teach a humble person than a haughty person, eventually, I got so tired about how to convince him to change for anything better.

      These are traditional steps how Chinese stir-fry their rice and how I changed it:

      Traditionally most Chinese chefs’ only mise en place did to their fried rice is by cooking the rice and let it cooled down, separate the rice grain or stored in a fridge. The busy restaurant chefs would get ready of their cut ham and prawn. When the order came, they would fry their egg, meat/prawn with oil, then scooped the white cooked rice added to the wok, while stir frying, most chefs would spend some time trying to separate the sticky rice in the wok with his scoop, then add seasoning and mixed vegetables. The disadvantage of this traditional stir frying method is a chef’s speed slowed down due to rice was not portioned earlier, there was no consistency of the stir fry rice texture, sometimes it could be marshy and sometimes there was still some grain stuck together. When a chef rushed due to too many orders coming in, he would use the scoop from his wok to scoop out the rice from the rice container and thus contaminated the cooked rice. As portioning was not done earlier on, sometimes the amount of stir-fry rice could be a little less or too much, it all depended on how much such chef added the meat/prawn and frozen mixed vegetables. And worst of all, the frozen vegetable were barely warmed when the stir-fry was done if he added the frozen mixed vegetable too late.

       I would mix the cooked rice with oil and frozen mixed vegetable, when the good quality fragrance Thai rice mixed with oil, although it was soft and sticky, it could be mixed easily with oil and cold frozen mixed vegetable to detach each grain of rice. When this was done, portioning began by using a container to measure it, this could be chilled and lasted for three days between 1 to 4 degree Celsius. Make sure you must wear gloves during mixing and portioning.

Stir fry rice could be very healthy if you are not stingy of the ingredients used, Chinese café and restaurant would try to eliminate as much ingredient to cut the cost of a dish in order to earn more money, thus home cook meal can be very clean, healthy and nutritious.

      To stir fry the most basic Chinese fried rice, the ingredients and method are as followed:

Ingredients:

4 tbsp vegetable oil and 1 tbsp sesame oil (you can use less oil if you use non-stick wok)

1 handful frozen mixed vegetable

1.5 bowl of cooked cool down rice, mix and separate the grain with 2 tbsp of oil and mixed vegetable

1 tbsp shallot/onion, brunoise

1 clove garlic, chop by using the back of a knife, then minced

2 eggs, beaten

1 handful ham/any kind of cooked meat, Macedoine/dice

5 large size prawns, halved

3 Tbsp Reduced chicken stock, add gradually

TT Salt and black pepper powder

1 stem spring onion, slice diagonally

Method:

1.       Heat up oil, sealed the prawns, then the cooked meat, sweat the onion and garlic, leave them aside.

2.       Fry the beaten egg, add in rice and mixed vegetable combine, combine everything and stir fry

3.       Add the chicken stock gradually while stir frying, you can use two wooden spoons/spatulas to stir fry the rice, incorporate the air into it. Fry until everything is well mixed and appeared pretty dry

4.       Add seasoning and check seasoning

5.       Finally, add in spring onion, give a last quick stir.

6.       Plating, just to let you know that fried rice tasted so good when accompanied with Korean kimji or any kind of salad. If you are a big meat eater, just add the meat like yakitori or even sliced steak at one side of the plate. Bon appetite!

HAVE YOU EDUCATED YOUR CHILDREN TO FEED THEIR OWN TUMMY WITH HEATHY FOOD?

By Chef Sarawak@NZ Chef Si

      

    It is unavoidable that your children will eat out with their friends and classmates, but have you educated them to feed their own tummy with healthy food? Do they know what they pay for is worthy and healthy? Or they have no knowledge at all?

      Why I write this article? For over weeks when I worked as a chef, after I saw so many unhygienic mise en place which I got no authority to stop such practice, after I was asked to prepare so many unhealthy ingredients, after I cooked so many servings of fish balls, meat balls or mixture of both from the frozen packages over a lunch period, finally my toleration time bomb exploded, my conscience took over me as a professionally trained chef, the menu was not designed by me, so I quit the next day.     

      We can’t stop some unethical Asian chefs working in restaurants in western countries, the worst are some of them were trained in the western culinary schools but deliberately went against the western culinary school teaching just to prove that their own Asian food and tradition are better, ironically they only aimed for profit making but sold unhealthy food to customers, but as a chef, I have my obligation to educate my children, my nephews and nieces what kind of food may not be healthy for them if they eat out.                                   

    Last Sunday, I deliberately took the notorious AGS pigeon boy to a Newmarket western restaurant for lunch. I deliberately let him chose what he wanted, immediately he chose the Greek meatballs. 

      Fine, young kids and chats simply love meat balls and fish balls if they didn’t play any ball! I let him ordered it, and his food education began on the Greek meatball. He finally learned the health issue and choice why he could choose to eat freshly made meatballs served in western restaurants but not the manufactured fish balls and meat balls usually sold in Asian restaurants, I told him there is only an exception that he may eat fish or meat balls in an Asian restaurant with an Asian chef who is highly educated, cultivated, have respect for himself, his own culture and other cultures as well, and have conscience and can guarantee his fish or meat doesn’t leave it to defrost at room temperature for the whole day and then using herbs, sesame oil or spice and chemical to cover up the rotting smell.

      Then I deliberately order a piece of steak placed on a piece of ciabatta, I asked him if he rather ate a piece of tough cheap sirloin steak in a western restaurant or a piece of even cheaper cost price but tenderized skirt steak in a Chinese restaurant. He asked me why? I told him the steak will be tender unless it is the very expensive A5 Wagyu or NZ grass fed beef, but usually, these marbled steaks would only cook to rare.

      I advised him to stay at home eating his Asian or Chinese food, it could be tasteless, tough but it would be always healthy and clean, and if he really needs to go out eating with his friends, he can choose the cheap $5 Domino pizza or he can choose to go eat in a decent western café where honest food is served. He asked me why, I told him because as most western restaurants if they mean chicken sauce, it means fresh chicken stock with lots of added vegetable and bouquet garni being reduced and even with roasted jus to prepare chicken sauce, in western sauce there was hardly any sugar added but only salt and pepper, whereas in most Chinese cafes, to prepare a particular sauce, the Chinese chefs would add so much sugar, MSG, salt, chicken essence, different kinds of soy sauce, ketchup or vinegar and water to prepare a sauce with little onion, garlic or ginger, this sauce prepared either from sugar or canned seasoning would be added to the meat or seafood which were all marinated with sodium carbonate. The rebellious teenage pigeon boy argued to me that it’s no harm to eat sodium carbonate like the Chinese chef "told me" it’s the “edible kind of sodium carbonate” when I showed him the Wikipedia said it’s a kind of cleansing agent. So, I challenged the pigeon boy why not I would buy 10 kg of the beef skirt and he would marinate it with sodium carbonate without a glove, immediately he sensed a danger from my tone.

      I met someone who told me his Chinese friend opened a restaurant in Australia and the deep fry business was so good, he mocked that his friends used MSG, sugar and sodium carbonate to marinate his chicken and used MSG in his batter but white people didn’t know it and they thought his chicken was so tender and tasted so good.

        Well, Chinese would argue that millions of Chinese have been eating meat marinated and noodles mixed with alkali over generations, well, it is your choice in life of what to feed into your own tummy, just like cigarettes hazard warning, if you are educated about what is healthy and unhealthy food, you have a choice, but if you are not educated, you can eat whatever you like and when you grow up even if you were trained in a western culinary school, the minute you step back into a Chinese kitchen, you were back to zero time one equal to zero! My experience taught me a male head chef is a chauvinist pig in a Chinese restaurant, a king in a Chinese kitchen, as if he cooked a simple dish or marinated a bowl of meat, he needed 3 assistants to help him so he could sense his superiority.  In short, what to feed into your children’s tummy is an important family education that could evolve their minds to accept other cultures’ goodness as well!