Tender Turkey Breast With Vegetables And Noodles....Chinese Style

Semi conventional wok with
front handle. Cost: 7 Euro

Fancy wok with Grid and Cover
Cost:  115 Euro









Two tier Chinese bamboo steamer

I cannot pretend to know how to cook Chinese. However, having eaten many a meal internationally, I came to the conclusion that it is not as complicated as it seems. It is just a matter of stir frying various ingredients quickly with very little oil but very thinly cut, sliced, julienned so that they cook quickly.The wok as shown above helps in this quick cooking of the food. The wok has a cone-like shape which helps transmit the heat from below all the way up to the brim. By equally dispersing the food all around the wok including its walls, the food cooks quickly.
Chinese cuisine also has the so called steamer, shown above, used to steam various foods such as the wanton, vegetables, and other.
I would like to share with you a Chinese dish where I use my imagination with whatever I happen to have on hand. This time I used the following ingredients, some other time I may have different ingredients but what I always need to have on hand is a protein cut in bite size pieces, onions, garlic, ginger, chili and the sauces. This time I stir fried bite size pieces of turkey, onions, garlic, peas, carrots, string beans, fresh ginger, sweet red pepper, hot red peppers, Chinese mushrooms, bamboo shoots and baby corn, added the precooked noodles, mixed them all up and voila!
So whenever you want to cook Chinese or this recipe you want to be in the mood to do some extra work, relaxed, and nobody rushing you. You want to sit in your kitchen, with nice music in the air, maybe drink a beer, so you can start julienning, cutting, slicing, chopping etc. and putting each ingredient in a different bowl and so on.
You will therefore need:
Serves 4
- 800 gms of turkey breast cut in small bite size pieces.
- 3 Tbsp. oil.
- 2 onions thinly sliced.
- 6 cloves of garlic finely chopped.
- 2 carrots julienne.
- 1 inch worth of fresh ginger peeled and grated.
- 1 cup of frozen sweet peas.
- 1 cup frozen string beans broken down in small pieces while they are still frozen.
- 1 hot chili finely chopped.
- 1 sweet red pepper julienne.
- 1 small can baby sweet corn.
- 1 smallest can available bamboo shoots thinly cut into strips.
- 1/2 cup flat when fresh, curly when dry, black on one side, beige on the other Chinese mushrooms, broken into small pieces and preboiled to soften.
- 250 gms wheat flour noodles broken down, and freshly boiled.
- 2 - 3 Tbsp. mushroom soy sauce.
- 2 Tbsp. thick sweet soy sauce.
- 1 Tbsp. oyster sauce.
- 1Tbsp. dark sesame oil.
Method:
- Heat wok. Add oil. Heat.
- Add Turkey pieces stir fry till meat changes color.
- Add onion slices, garlic, and chili. Stir fry mixing well with turkey 1/2 minute.
- Add the ginger, carrots, peas, string beans, mushrooms, baby sweet corn with can water and bamboo shoots with can water. Stir a couple of times and mix everything well.
- Add all sauces, stir, mix and let cook 1 minute.
- Add pre-cooked noodles, stir, mix turn off heat and pull wok away.
- Add dark sesame oil and mix.
Serve.
Note: All vegetables must be crunchy but the protein must be cooked. This is the whole secret of Chinese cuisine.
This is a complete meal by itself which you can enjoy with hot jasmine tea or,
If you insist on wine then a Rosé or a Riesling* will do just fine.
If you choose to go with the tea then you will feel hungry again very quickly.
Bon Appétit my friends!
Stelio
* As suggested by Hugh Johnson in his bestselling pocket guide to wine 2011.