Welcome to the Family

We're The Napkin Stains.  Well, we might as well be.  We're a family that likes to cook, and loves to eat.  As the mother of two girls and wife of a hungry husband, I could swear I should be an expensive personal chef.  However, that isn't likely to happen, so I'll settle for sharing our culinary adventures.

My eldest, we'll call her Thai Pepper, (my hubby being a Jalapeno Pepper and youngest being a Red Bell Pepper) isn't too picky--if you don't consider dislike for tomatoes difficult (I do)--and Red Bell, well, I never know what she's going to eat.  Mostly.

One dish I can guarantee zero leftovers for (good thing, my refrigerator seems to shrink daily) is Kung Pao Chicken. We looked into a recipe because Red Bell loves to eat Chinese out, but we got tired of poor chicken quality in take-out dishes.  It always seemed that the take-out would be full of gristle or not as fresh as we'd like to have--so I took the matter into my own hands.  As my dear Jalapeno points out, it's a nice homemade treat that is a little different from our usual dinner fare.

Prepping some ingredients for Kung Pao.  The thing about many Asian dishes is the amount of prep work involved: to make the stir fry filling for, say, egg rolls tonight, I have to finely chop a number of items (a mandolin is an essential tool, at this point) before I even get to the cooking--that part, itself, is quick.  Here, we have black sesame oil, black vinegar, soy sauce, and brown sugar.  There are two steps for Kung Pao--a marinade, and a sticky sauce that goes on the mix after you've done your frying.  This is NOT a healthy dish--but who cares!

I Googled two recipes for Kung Pao, but eventually refined and formulated my own because some of the ingredients (like Black Soy Sauce) are specific and I don't always have them on hand.  We're always in the grocery store, including an ethnic market, so we looked around to find some authentic ingredients and substitutions.  As a retired teacher, I enjoy the research to understand a new dish. 

The best changes I'd suggest making to a Kung Pao recipe involve notes that you should go heavier on the cornstarch, and we like it with a little more vinegar.  It's taken a while to master my wok--I received it for the holidays, but, to our dismay, the little ring it is supposed to sit on does not fit on our gas stove--so we have to put the wok on the burner.  This puts it just a touch too far from the flames, so my wok does not get as blisteringly hot as a traditional system would.  This will cause problems because stir fry dishes can get soggy when the heat drops as you try to make sure meats like chicken are thoroughly cooked.  My advice, if you find your wok attempts are yielding a soggy, less-than-crispy result, is to use smaller batches.  This is more time on my poor feet, but the taste is worth it--I always get a full 5/5 Napkin Stains of approval from my little Peppers.

The marinade stage with my chunks of chicken--I like that I get to trim the gristle and fat off so each bite is satisfying.  On another note, I have a set of those Pyrex glass bowls, and I really love them.  They're strong, the right sizes, and all come with lids.  Perfect.  I linked them below--seriously, given the choice, I'd like another set.

Today, I didn't have all the ingredients I needed, so I had to swap out black vinegar for the black soy sauce; I also didn't have Shaoxing Wine, so I used sherry.  Thank goodness for substitutions.

I'm also making Egg Rolls tonight (because I'm crazy).  I've had to modify that recipe also, because my family just doesn't like the cabbage inside.  Instead, I do bean sprouts, carrots, bamboo shoots, and sometimes water chesnuts to help form the filling.  Of course, I peel and cook shrimp to go inside, add ginger, sesame oil, soy sauce, and....well, I wing it, a lot of the time.  Sometimes you just toss in what's next to you.

The finished dish, garnished with a dried Thai pepper that I grew and dried myself and some sliced scallions.  Dinner time!

Well, I've got a hot wok waiting for me!