Broiled teriyaki chicken with a stir fry of portobello mushrooms, red onion, and bok choi

Stir fry of prawns, mushrooms, and chard; wheat berry

Stir fry with shrimp, mushrooms, and broccoli

Most of our stir fries start with fresh ginger and garlic sauteed in a light oil; then the veggies and the deveined shrimp. We served this stir fry with brown rice and a French rosé.

9 and 10 November 2008

Tuna medallions with rice and broccoli.


Boyfriend-made stir-fry with peanuts, shitake, and greens.

12 October 2008

Shitake mushrooms are amazing. The peppers were roasted first at the bottom of the very hot wok. The black beans are coco negri, from La Tercera. Ginger and a little soy sauce and olive oil complete the fusion stir-fry.

1 October 2008

A stir-fry with mushrooms, tempeh, and broccoli flowers, served next to steamed brown rice.

16 September 2008: Rainbows

Stir-fry with tofu noodles, mushrooms, and peas

At the Berkeley farmers' markets, and indeed at every farmers' market in the Bay Area, is a stand for Hodo Soy, which makes excellent tofu and tofu-based prepared products. (I cannot, however, recommend their soy milk. It is the dried and ground soy beans dissolved in water that will have calcium added to curdle. It tastes exactly like what it is: a step along the way and by-product of tofu manufacturing.)

One tasty ingredient available from Hodo Soy are their soy noodles: firm tofu pressed through a spaghetti maker. These are excellent in stir-fries. The tofu, made fresh daily, tastes good already, and the high surface area allows the tofu to pick up flavors from the sauce.

In the wok, we heated vegetable oil with a little sesame oil, and briefly sautéed green onion, sliced mushrooms, and chopped baby bok choy (mei ching choi), and the tofu noodles.



Then we added snap peas (tips and strings removed), soy sauce, and one can each of water chestnuts and bamboo shoots. After a few stirs, we covered the wok and let the mixture simmer and heat.

Aim for your stir fry to have a little liquid at the bottom. Right before serving, combine a Tablespoon of corn starch with enough soy sauce to dissolve, and maybe a little sesame oil. Remove stir-fry from heat, and, stirring constantly, add corn-starch mixture. A few tosses, since the pan is still hot, should be enough to create the sticky glaze on tasty stir-fries. Mix in some toasted sesame seeds for good measure, and serve.

We had our stir-fry over brown rice.

Vegan "Beef with Broccoli"

First, set rice cooking. Combine one part rice with 1.5 part salted water, bring to boil, and simmer covered 20 minutes. After twenty minutes, do not remove cover, but turn off heat and let rice continue to steam for at least 20 minutes.

In a small saucepan, boil TVP with vegetable broth, some soy sauce, and a splash of red wine.

In a wok, heat some vegetable oil with cumin seed and aniseed, or whatever spices you like (e.g. ginger and red pepper, neither of which I have). When oil is hot, add and sauté a diced green onion.

Wash and chop a bunch of rapini and toss with the stir-fry. Add the (mostly drained) TVP, and a little more oil if necessary. Cook on medium-high, stirring constantly, until rapini has cooked. Add a splash of sesame oil and a dusting of sesame seeds, and serve over rice.

Stir fry with peanuts and greens

Although we get beautiful new produce every Wednesday, I rarely get to enjoy it immediately. I usually have some produce left from previous days, and I make myself eat up the older stuff first.

For today's dinner, I heated some vegetable oil at the bottom of a wok, along with aniseed, cumin seed, and diced green onion. While that sauteed, I washed and chopped the greens from a bunch of tokyo turnips and a bunch of yellow beats. I added a large handful of peanuts to the oil, and coated, and then added the greens along with some soy sauce. Cooking on high and stirring constantly, I cooked off most of the liquid and wilted the greens. Then I removed the stir-fry from heat, stepped outside briefly to see if I could see the lunar eclipse (there were clouds), and then tossed the stir-fry with some sesame oil and sat down to eat.

Tofu stir-fry with peanuts, leek, mushroom, and green cabbage

Before starting this blog, I would post recipes on various other sites on the internet. In the interest of compiling all my food postings on one site, I reprint them here. Originally posted 13 January 2008.


If you get very good tofu, it's worth eating plain, with soy sauce. Alternately, marinate in soy sauce mixed with water, but be careful not to make it too salty, and add right at the end to a stir-fry, just long enough to heat up.

Before adding the tofu, heat an inch or two of vegetable oil in a wok, along with peppercorns, whole cloves, star anise, and one dried hot chili. When spices start to darken, remove from heat and strain out spices. Discard spices, and toast unsalted peanuts in the spiced oil until they start to darken. Remove peanuts and set aside, leaving oil in wok. Toss peanuts with a little salt and some aniseed.

Add to the wok washed and finely chopped leeks (onions, garlic, shallots, etc.), and cook a little bit. Then add sliced mushrooms and drain some soy sauce from the marinating tofu. Toss briefly, and cover with lid of wok to steam (this helps preserve the mushroom flavor). When mushrooms are cooked, remove from wok, leaving as much liquid as possible in wok.

Slice a green cabbage in half, remove core, and slice thin from pole to pole, and half the slices along the equator. Add to wok, cover, and steam to reduce. When cabbage is soft, add and (re)heat leeks and mushrooms and tofu, but not the tofu marinade. Cook off as much liquid as possible, and toss in peanuts at the end.