Easy Stir-fry Marinade

I didn't grow up eating much meat, and when I moved away from home I became an accidental vegetarian. It took me two years to dare to touch raw meat. For years I only bought skinless boneless chicken breasts and ground beef, but now I buy a split quarter of a cow from Chileno Valley Ranch in Petaluma. The meat is really good, but I have a lot to learn about the various cuts of meat. The other day I googled my steak before I fixed it because there have been a few times when I thought my family was going to be up all night chewing something I had roasted or pan-fried. Embarrassing! This turned out to be a tough cut, so I cut it up and marinated it ahead of time. The result was so tender I wondered why it took me so long to get on board. Since then I've been making stir-fry about once a week. Because the vegetables are different every time, it never feels like we're eating the same thing week after week. 

I prepare the meat the night before, and set up the rice cooker on a timer earlier in the day so that when dinner time rolls around this comes together quickly. Here is how I do it. 

Marinade Ingredients:
chopped garlic
chopped ginger
soy sauce
sake or wine
arrowroot powder or cornstarch
toasted sesame oil 
10-spice powder (see my post on 10-spice Tilapia for the recipe)

Stir it up, cover it, and refrigerate it overnight. 

I'm not including amounts because this is not something you measure, just a dump-and-guess kind of procedure. The 10-spice powder is optional. If you are comfortable stir-frying then read no further, but if you aren't sure about the rest or you're curious about how someone else does it, keep reading. 

Heat up a wok or frying pan. Add some oil and let it get really hot. I use a mixture of equal parts olive oil, coconut oil, and unrefined sesame oil. I've also used tallow and lard. If that sounds crazy to you, you can read more about it in this book, or just use canola oil. 

Add the marinated meat. Stir and cook. 

When the meat is browned and mostly done, take it out and set it aside. You will be adding it back in later, so it shouldn't be cooked all the way through. Because the arrowroot powder (or cornstarch) is a thickening agent, there will be lots of thick gloopy stuff stuck to your pan. Scrape out as much of it as you can. I think that the thickening agent is usually added at the end, but I throw it in at the beginning and it works fine for me. 

Add a little more oil to your pan, and when it's hot enough, throw in your vegetables. On this particular occasion I had half a tomato that needed to be cooked, mushrooms, and a small eggplant (from my garden!!!). Whatever you use, put the vegetables that take longer to cook in first. I salted the vegetables a little bit at this point. 

I threw some spinach in as well, which barely needs to cook. I also added some chicken broth. Technically, I crossed the line between stir-frying and steaming here, but it was a good thing because all of the goop from the meat that I didn't scrape out was going to burn soon. Sometimes I add more sake at this point or even just water if I don't have chicken broth. 

Add the meat back in now and keep stirring. Taste for salt. If it needs more add salt or soy sauce. I usually add a little ground pepper here as well. As soon as the spinach wilted, it was done. 

I serve it over hot rice. We always eat it with some kind of pickle as well. Growing up I liked shredded pickled red ginger or takuan, but recently we've been eating it with kimchi.