photo by BocaDorada

This weekend I was determined to use my wok for the first time. See, my boyfriend makes fun of me about all the kitchen stuff I’ve managed to acquire throughout the years and never use. So, I’m on a mission. The other days, I made an extra serving of rice because I know that old rice (one or two days old) is used for traditional fried rice. I had a bag of stir fry vegetables. I defrosted some boneless chicken thighs and marinated them in soy sauce, ginger, scallions, sesame oil, garlic, sugar, cornstarch and lime juice (to tenderize). Marinate for an hour. Heat the wok and drizzle sesame oil. Never preheat the wok without oil in it. Once the oil is hot, add the vegetables. You can make this with your choice of vegetables. Stir fry until done (which will depend if using fresh vegetables or frozen). You want them to be crisp. Transfer to a plate.

Add more oil to the wok and cook the chicken until no longer pink. Add hoisin sauce and the vegetables back to the pan. Add little water and cornstarch to create a thick sauce. Transfer this to a plate.

At this point, I may be complicating my life but I’ve always wanted to fry the rice in the wok. So, I heat the wok again, drizzle some sesame oil, add a generous amount of soy sauce, scallions and then add the old rice. The sound is magic. Once the rice has acquired the color of the soy sauce, I added everything to the wok again and topped with many many sesame seeds. Please keep in mind I am not a professional chef. If you want to try any of these recipes, you should adjust the seasonings to your taste. I just hope that I can inspire ideas for you to try on. Happy cooking!