Kohlrabi Stir-Fry with Chicken or Pork (BRW)

• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 12 ounces boneless, skinless chicken thighs or pork shoulder, thinly slice or cut into small chunks [I would've done pork for a change of pace, but it didn't make much sense to ask for when all I saw was bone-in packages.]
• Salt and black pepper
• 1 tablespoon minced ginger
• 1 pound kohlrabi, peeled and chopped [I was excited about using a vegetable I've never worked with before, but Whole Foods didn't have it in.  I used jicama, but sunchokes, daikon, or even big chunks of cabbage will work.  I still have worked with sunchokes, but I was blanking on substitutions at the store.]
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1/2 cup sliced scallions

Mise en place.

By the way, jicama is one of the most ridiculously hard things to peel ever.  So damn fibrous, I thought my peeler was giving out on me, but no, it's the jicama's fault.

The directions say to stir constantly over medium-high heat until it starts to brown, but I gave up on that at some point.  I let it sit for a bit and then stirred and got modest browning.

It was supposed to take 3-5 minutes, but it took way longer to even cook away the moisture the chicken released.

Add ginger and continue to stir-fry until aromatic.

Add jicama and 1/4 cup of water.  Cook and stir until it softens a bit and the water evaporates.  Off heat, stir in soy sauce, lemon juice, and scallions.

The 1/4 cup of water evaporated almost immediately for me so I was silly and added an additional 1/2 cup of water.  Oh well.  By the time this had cooked off the chicken had become a hot mess and shredded, but the dish didn't suffer any for it.
Perfectly serviceable stir-fry though I might be reluctant to approach peeling jicama unless I had to.

Stir-Fried Chicken with Creamed Corn (BRW)

• 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts or thighs, cut into roughly 1-inch chunks [Given the option, I never go for white meat]
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon dark sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine, dry sherry, or white wine [Might as well use sherry.  I don't think I've gotten around to getting Shaoxing wine yet.  Odd that it suggests white wine as well.  I don't see that much.]
• 2 tablespoons peanut or neutral oil, like corn or grapeseed
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon peeled and minced fresh ginger
• 1 small fresh chile, stemmed, seeded, and mince or hot red pepper flakes to taste
• One 15-ounce can creamed corn
• 1 cup fresh, frozen, or canned corn kernels
• Chopped fresh cilantro leaves for garnish

Mise en place.  Yeah, that is literally a can of creamed corn.  Mark Bittman leads me to think that this is a fairly popular dish in Hong Kong.

Chicken marinates in the soy sauce, sesame oil, and wine while other ingredients are prepped.

Cook chicken undisturbed in oil over high heat undisturbed for about 2 minutes until the bottom browns (sort of).  Stir once or twice and cook for another couple of minutes.

Turn the heat down to medium low, add the aromatics, and stir.

Fifteen seconds later add the corn.  Cook until heated through.

Hey, I can't say that this dish isn't quite tasty, but cracking open a can of creamed corn and using that as the general basis of a "home-cooked" dish doesn't really suit my tastes anymore.  It all kind of feels a little gross, but I'm glad I gave this a shot.
Frozen dinners and those pot pies in those yellow boxes are still totally good, but I can only imagine the ingredient list for creamed corn.

Stir-Fried Pork, Eggplant, and Onion with Garlic and Black Pepper (CATKTV)

Sauce

• 2 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 1/2 tablespoons fish sauce
  
• 2 1/2 tablespoons low-sodium chicken broth
• 2 teaspoons juice from 1 lime
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch

Pork and Vegetables

• 1 (12-ounce) pork tenderloin, trimmed of fat and silver skin and cut into 1/4 inch strips [I used pork loin because the only tenderloin at Stop and Shop is pre-marinated.]
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon fish sauce
• 3 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil
• 12 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed through a garlic press (about 1/4 cup) [Peeling and microplane-ing this amount of garlic took ridiculous amount of time.]
• 2 teaspoons ground black pepper
• 1 medium eggplant (1 pound), cut into 3/4-inch cubes
• 1 large onion, halved and cut into 1/4-inch wedges
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves
  

Between peeling and finely grating the garlic, hand-grinding the black pepper, and picking off cilantro leaves, the prep involved was INVOLVED.
The other prep was a breeze later in comparison, and stir-fries are the opposite of a 3-hour braise.


Cooking through the slivers of pork in about 2 minutes.


Browning the eggplant until it is no longer spongy. I saw some graffiti eggplant at Trader Joe's yesterday. I wish I had been playing with that.




In goes the onions.
Also keep in mind, that everything is being cooked in stages over high heat. Most things cooked in just a couple of minutes. The eggplant just took a few minutes longer.


Clearing out the center of the pan and cooking the aromatics (in this case, garlic and black pepper) in the center of the pan seems like it's a pretty classic technique for cuisines ranging from Southeast Asia to Italy.


A strong stir-fry. It didn't wow me, but it certainly tasted cleaner than oily thing I might hope to expect to order in a restaurant.
Plus there's about 3 more recipes worth of pork loin in my freezer now.