My all-purpose stir fry sauce transforms ordinary ingredients into one-wok wonders. Check out this visual proof of wok hei!

Time: 2/5
Over in a jiffy, before the rice is done!

Effort: 3/5
Gotta stay by the stove, and there’s no way to upscale

Fast and Furious

I have a dark secret that I’ve been keeping to myself all year – I don’t think the food photography for the first pork and peppers stir fry post is up to snuff, even by my own lax standards for a casual side project such as this one.

Ok, so maybe the secret wasn’t so dark. But it’s still true that both my cooking and my food photography skills have improved a bit since that first post and it wouldn’t hurt to redo it to do the recipe justice.

Besides, I want to show off a foolproof stir fry sauce that I’ve been relying on lately. It’s the same soy sauce, oyster sauce, a tiny bit of sesame oil and a bit of sugar. But then, add a splash of Shaoxing wine, stir it into the hot oil that you used to lightly char your aromatics, and suddenly it’s a restaurant-tier sauce! The Shaoxing wine was the missing link.

The impetus finally came when we had some peppers left over, and I had hot pot pork sitting in the freezer. Since I used a different type of pepper this time, I get to say this is a new recipe! That’s technically correct, which is the best kind of correct.

These long thin peppers have just a tiny bit of heat, which makes dinner a bit more interesting. I also wanted to experiment with cutting the peppers a different way – thinner, longer strips that will hopefully be easier to char and take less time to cook. Read on to see how that turned out!

Just kidding. I’ll spare you the cliffhanger, it worked.

Now there’s some wok hei you can see – look at the char on the peppers and the brown on the pork!

While this stir fry is already a complete meal with some rice, I served it with Tom Yum Kung as well because the boss lady wanted Tom Yum so Tom Yum is going on the table whether it matches the theme or not. Which goes to show how home cooking is a kind of superpower – I challenge you to find a restaurant where you can get both (good) Chinese stir fry and (good) Tom Yum at the same time. You’re in charge of your own kitchen, and dinner can be whatever you have the ability to make happen.

Dramatis Personae

Served 2, because I’ve since learned the folly of trying to stir fry for a crowd

Pork – 300g

Keep a pack of thin-cut hot pot pork in your freezer, and it will rescue your dinner one day. They defrost really quickly if you immerse the whole package in water, and they’re the perfect rice bowl topping.

Of course, you can just use it for an impromptu hotpot meal or make a stir fry with it, although I admit that when pork gets sliced so thin it doesn’t have much structural integrity.

Expect the pork to get a bit beat up when you stir it in the pan. Or, just take a big piece of pork and hand-cut it against the grain into slices or strips if you have the time and energy. I just find it easier to manage my own expectations than to go through the trouble on most nights.

Peppers – 300g

Always eat your veggies! Remember that the heat lives in the white ribs. Do with that knowledge what you will. I still prefer removing the ribs, because leaving them in can give the dish a slightly bitter aftertaste that I’m not too wild about.

I cut my peppers like I do a bell pepper, opening them up and shaving strips around the core. I’ll show step by step pictures later. You can slice them however you want of course, so feel free to try different shapes and see how that changes the texture of the end product.

Aromatics – to taste

Just garlic and shallots today, but some ginger would be very nice as well. The more the merrier, within reason.

Sauce – to taste

I forgot to measure (again) but if I were to guess, I would say 1 tablespoon each of soy sauce, oyster sauce and Shaoxing wine, then a teaspoon each of sugar and sesame oil.

You can and should taste and adjust the seasoning to your liking. After all, you are the Stephen Fry of your stir fry (sorry Chef John, I tried).

Executive summary

1. Wash and cut the peppers and aromatics.
2. Grab all the ingredients and sauces you need.
3. Put the pan on high heat, and add in a drizzle of high-heat oil.
4. Add peppers to pan and stir until lightly charred.
5. Add aromatics and pork. Stir until almost done.
6. Add sauce ingredients and stir until it coats the ingredients.
7. Plate up and serve.

Play by Play

This was harder than I imagined it would be, shaving the walls off the ribs of these long narrow peppers. But I got the job done so there we go, thin narrow strips of peppers plus the aromatics ready to go.

It’s gonna be hell trying to stir apart these thin pieces of pork without shredding them later, so I’m taking the effort to separate them into little individual bundles first.

Alright, I think we have everything we need. I started preheating my pan while I snapped some pics. Let’s go!

Don’t blink now, things gonna go down fast. Peppers, stir, aromatics, stir, pork, stir. These pictures were like 3 minutes apart.

Sauce in. The liquid buys us some time against things scorching to the bottom. I reduced the sauce at a vigorous boil, while repositioning the pork to cook all the pink out of it. Here is where you would add a slurry, if you like.

And we’re done! Technically a one-pan meal, because the rice cooker isn’t a pan.

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