Round-eye is a counter-slur applied by Asians to Caucasians. It seemed a fitting label for this dish, which has nothing authentic about it. Real stir fry requires a wok and some skill. I go to a restaurant if that’s what I want to eat.
Round-eye stir fry is what I make at home when I want a one-skillet meal to go with rice. It can be made in less than an hour, and makes enough to serve 3-4 people, or can create leftovers for another 1-2 meals. It can also be varied freely, allowing me to cook it almost every week, in one version or another.
Ingredients
| 1 cup dry rice | Cooked in a rice cooker while the rest of the meal is prepared. I favor jasmine rice |
| 1 jar of Asian sauce | Examples: 1) Thai chili garlic sauce (use half a small jar); 2) madras or jalfrezi or other curry; 3) black bean sauce (about half a small jar); 4) anything else you care to try |
| Sriracha sauce to taste | With the exception of the chili garlic sauce, I find I have to add 1-2 tablespoons of sriracha sauce to get enough heat from commercially packed sauces |
| Protein of choice, 8-12 ounces | I favor pork tenderloin with all the fatty edges shaved off; sirloin, lamb, and chicken will also work |
| 1 onion | |
| 1 red pepper | |
| Diced tomatoes with chilis | The chilis also help to get the heat where I like it to be |
| Baby bok choy | I personally discard the green leafy part and keep the sweet juicy white parts |
| 3 stalks of celery | But not with black bean sauce, those two flavors don’t mix, for me |
| 1 or 2 of the following: Green beans
Broccoli Cauliflower Baby carrots |
Green beans and carrots, or carrots and cauliflower, or broccoli and cauliflower, work well as pairings |
| Garlic salt | |
| Pepper to taste |
Preparation
- Start the rice
- Chop up the vegetables. I eat with a fork, so I favor relatively small pieces that I can get on a fork with some rice and a piece of the protein.
- Cut up the protein. I get about four pieces of pork tenderloin, an inch wide and six or seven inches long (the remainder of the tenderloin can be cooked another way another time). Salt it. See step #6 and #7 for cooking.
- Start vegetables. Carrots and green beans go in on medium heat first, for at least five minutes after they start to sizzle. Then add onion, celery and bok choy, for another few minutes; then add broccoli and cauliflower, for another few minutes. Stir in each addition. Salt each addition. Add a teaspoon of crushed garlic in the beginning, if you like. Don’t add sweet red peppers until the very end.
- Push vegetables to edge of pan. Dump in the sauce jar and the diced tomatoes in the middle. Press to flatten
- Take a grill pan, put a tiny amount of oil in, and turn on medium high heat.
- Wait until the pan is really hot, and then add the strips of pork from step #3. As soon as one side is browned, turn over and brown the other side. Stop cooking when there’s not much, but still some, dark red center, and only the outer edge is actually cooked through, with most of the rest some shade of pink. The goal is to remove the pork from the pan before it’s fully cooked, so that it finishes cooking within the sauce, which keeps it moist.
- Take the not-done pork, and chop it up. Again, I favor small pieces and shreds. Salt again, and pepper if desired. Dump the chopped pork into the now bubbling sauce in the pan with vegetables. Press the pork down into the liquid so that most pieces are mostly covered. Spread inward the vegetables if you need more of a cover. Put the lid on the pan and turn the heat down to low.
- Do other things for 5 minutes or so. Open the lid and mix the pork and vegetables and sauce. Return lid and turn off heat. Too much heat for too long will toughen the pork.
- Putter around for a few minutes, then serve yourself some rice and ladle the sauce mixture over the rice until you have a full enough plate to satisfy your appetite.
Notes
By rotating the protein, and changing the vegetable mix, and changing the sauces used, I’m able to enjoy this meal week after week.
You could replace the meat with tofu, or with shrimp, or with chunks of fish, but I almost never do, because I don’t eat tofu, and because I get my fill of fish and shrimp in other meals elsewhere in the week. Likewise, I mostly rotate between pork or chicken, because I get my beef and lamb quotient in other meals. Overall, I have the best luck with pork.