There are many wonderful asian cookbooks and websites/blogs with interesting sauces for stir fry, or to cover steamed veggies, and they usually start with making your own stock. If you have the time, all of these different stocks and sauces would be fun to experiment with.
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| I used gluten free seitan, mushrooms, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, carrots, snow peas, red peppers, green onion, yellow squash and cilantro to garnish! |
This recipe is a basic, easy, fast to make, bold, sweet and salty chinese brown sauce. Add very small amount to cover and toss into stir fry. Feel free to add veggie stock to take away from the sodium, or, add fruit juice (then leave out some sweetener).
This is the type of sauce you would get on the PFChangs tofu lettuce wraps. Lettuce wraps: dice,very small:green onion,water chestnuts,celery,exfirm tofu,shitake mushrooms.Stir fry,add sauce,place in clean,dry romaine leaves.
Equipment:
whisk
saucepan or wok
little bowl for starch and water
Ingredients...
1/2 cup low sodium soy sauce (or tamari)
2 TBL molasses
2 tsp rice vinegar (you can use regular or cider vinegar)
2 tsp sesame oil, or tahini (or use light oil, if you do not have sesame)
1 clove chopped garlic (or more if you wish)
1 tsp minced ginger
dash of white pepper
small dash of ground clove
3 TBL water mixed well with 1 TBL starch (cornstarch / tapicoa / potato) (have extra in case your sauce is too thin)
agave nectar, or sweetener to taste (important, these sauces are always sweet, so if it does not taste right add sweetener, a little at a time)
Method:
Combine and whisk all ingredients, except water/starch slurry, over high heat (tasting to see the sweetener level) and whisk together very well (make sure the molasses is combined) until a mild boil is reached.
Add the starch/water mixture when boiling, whisking into the sauce and turn the heat down until the sauce is thick enough to coat vegetables.
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| marinading oil |
Your stir fry:
Have all of your veggies and tofu or mock items ready to go. If using some “watery” vegetables, try to cut the water bound parts out (peppers, cut the insides out and place in stock or compost) and throw into the fry last. Mushrooms, use dried and rehydrate.
Many asian restaurants use oil that has been sitting and marinading with garlic, green onion and fresh ginger
Have the wok, grill, or sauté pan, extremely hot and ready to sear your items in a tiny bit of oil, if not burning hot, water from the veggies will go into the sauce and make the sauce watery. Also, be ready to move the veggies around with a big heavy duty spatula, or by flipping the saute pan. This is the reason you often see burn marks on stir fry.
Place the sauce on at the last second before you plate the dish!
