Chicken and Green Bean Stir Fry #Recipe Peg Cochran/Margaret Loudon

 

This is a quick and easy weeknight dinner when you have a craving for Asian flavors.  And it's cheaper and healthier than take-out!  I had green beans I wanted to use up and I had chicken thighs and I had a craving for a stir fry.  This recipe fit the bill with a few tweaks.  The recipe called for frozen green beans but mine were fresh.  I microwaved them briefly before adding them to the pan to cut down on cooking time.  I also had a smaller amount of chicken since only two of us were going to be eating this.  I didn't have any green onions and had to do without but it was still delicious.  The recipe called for red pepper flakes but I preferred the taste of sriracha, which I always have on hand.  You can use soy sauce or tamari if you want to make this gluten free.

 

1.5 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs, cut into thin strips

2 Tablespoons cornstarch

1/4 cup soy sauce or tamari

3 Tablespoons honey

2 Tablespoons each rice vinegar & hoisin sauce

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1-4 – 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes or sriracha to taste

2 teaspoons cornstarch

3 Tablespoons toasted sesame oil

1 pound green beans, fresh or frozen

5-6 scallions, whites & greens separated

8 cloves garlic, finely minced

  

If using fresh green beans, microwave for 3 to 4 minutes.  If frozen, allow to thaw.

Toss the chicken thigh strips with 2 tablespoons cornstarch. Set aside.

 

Whisk together the soy sauce or tamari, honey, rice vinegar, hoisin sauce, ground ginger, chili flakes or sriracha, and cornstarch. Set aside.

 

Heat about half of the sesame oil over medium-high heat. Working in 2-3 batches if necessary, add the chicken strips. Let the chicken cook undisturbed for a few minutes to allow it to brown. Turn and cook until browned and cooked through, about 5-7 minutes per batch. Remove each batch of chicken and set aside. Add more sesame oil between batches if needed.

Reduce the heat to low. Add remaining sesame oil to the pan. Add the garlic and the whites of the green onions. Sauté for 1-2 minutes until fragrant.

Add the green beans and sauté until tender or to taste. 

 

Return the cooked chicken to the pan. Pour the prepared sauce over the chicken and green beans. Stir well to coat everything evenly. Cook for another 2-3 minutes until the sauce has thickened.  Top with optional green onions.

 

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Chicken and Broccoli Stir Fry #Recipe @PegCochran

 

 

I learned a new technique with this recipe adapted from Inspired Taste--velveting chicken.  It's how Chinese restaurants keep their meat so tender in a stir fry.  Marinating the chicken in a mixture with cornstarch coats the chicken giving it a velvety texture. When plunged into boiling water briefly, the cornstarch coating hardens and seals in the meat's juices.

I decided to give it a try with this chicken and broccoli stir fry recipe.  Did it make a difference?  I thought so.  The chicken came out wonderfully tender.  As usual, I made a few changes to accommodate what I didn't have on hand.

I found the sauce needed more cornstarch to thicken (about two more tablespoons.)  It also made quite a lot--I could have saved some of it for another stir fry. 

 

Chicken and Broccoli

 

1 pound broccoli florets, cut into small pieces, 5 to 6 cups

1 ¼ pounds boneless and skinless chicken breast or thighs, sliced against the grain into thin strips (I used breast meat)

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1 tablespoon light soy sauce

3 tablespoons neutral oil like vegetable or avocado oil

 

Stir Fry Sauce

 

6 garlic cloves, minced

3 tablespoons minced fresh ginger (or one tablespoon ginger paste)

1 cup chicken or vegetable stock

4 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons Shaoxing wine, substitute dry sherry or mirin. (I subbed seasoned rice wine vinegar)

1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil

2 tablespoons sugar (I used Splenda)

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper

Marinate chicken

 

Slice chicken against the grain into thin strips.  It helps if the chicken is slightly frozen. 

 

Place in a bowl and add 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 1 tablespoon Oil and 1 tablespoon cornstarch.  Mix well.

 

Let chicken marinate for approximately 30 minutes. 

 

 

Break broccoli into bite-sized florets.

 

 

Stir Fry Sauce

Combine all the stir fry ingredients in a small pan and cook over medium heat, stirring, until sugar dissolves.  Set aside.

 

Cook Broccoli

Fill a large saucepan with water and bring to a boil. Add broccoli florets and cook until they are crisp-tender.  This should take approximately 3 minutes.

 

Remove broccoli from water and drain.  Save water.

 

How to Velvet Chicken

 

Raise the heat and allow the water to come to a boil again.

 

Add one teaspoon of oil and bring to a boil again.  Add chicken and stir to avoid sticking.

 

Cook 30 to 40 seconds or until opaque on the outside but raw on the inside.  Remove from boiling water and drain thoroughly.  Place on a plate lined with paper towels and set aside.

 

Cooking Stir Fry

 

Heat a large skillet (or a wok if you have one) over high heat. 

 

While skillet heats, stir one tablespoon of cornstarch with three tablespoons of cold water. Mix and set aside.

 

 

 

Add two tablespoons of oil to skillet and when oil is shimmering, add the broccoli and chicken.  Stir and cook approximately one minute then add stir fry sauce.

 

Stir corn starch mixture (it will have settled) and then slowly pour it into the skillet.  Stir until the sauce thickens and coats the chicken and broccoli.  Serve over rice if desired.

 

 

Cranberry Cove #7 is finally here! 

 

Monica's stepmother wakes up next to a dead man!  Did she do it?

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An unscrupulous realtor pays the ultimate closing costs in the new Cranberry Cove Mystery from USA Today bestselling author Peg Cochran!

Autumn is settling in on Cranberry Cove, but things are starting to heat up when Monica’s stepmother shows up at her back door gripped by panic. Gasping out an explanation, she tells Monica she’d been dozing in her realtor’s car when he was shot dead. Refusing to alert the police for fear that the killer will target her next—or that the police will consider her their prime suspect—Monica’s stepmother goes mute, and Monica decides to track down the culprit herself to clear her name and keep her safe.

Finding the killer won’t be so easy, though, as the victim had run afoul of buyers, sellers, and even other realtors at one time or another, and it seems that nearly everyone in the small town had a reason to want him dead. Even more puzzling is that the deeper Monica digs into the background and final days of the victim, the more the clues point to her stepmother. Then a second body is found, and Monica realizes she’s going up against a devious killer who will stop at nothing to put everyone involved out of commission . . .

Garlic Scape Stir Fry from @MaddieDayAuthor #giveaway

MADDIE DAY here with a garden treat for you.

I've been growing garlic in my home organic garden for decades. 

When I had a small organic farm, I planted and harvested hundreds of cloves. Garlic is easy to grow, if you have rich loose soil. In New England you plant in the fall, which is unusual for other food crops. It comes up in the spring and has basically no pests or diseases. You harvest in the summer.

Here I am in my small organic farm in the mid-nineties with only a part of my garlic crop

I still plant it every year, and love the harvest. 

At this time of year, stiff-neck garlic throws up a potential flower stalk called a scape. 

Because I am growing in order to harvest big bulbs, I clip off the scapes, which keeps the plant from putting its energy into the flower and instead lets the garlic bulb up underground.

Now for the recipe! You can make this with raw or cooked meat, or tofu. You can also vary all the other vegetables, and if you can't find scapes in your garden or at your local farmers' market or farm stand, go ahead and mince a few cloves of cured garlic instead.

Garlic Scape Stir Fry

Ingredients

1 chicken breast, cooked and shredded

1 teaspoon cornstarch

2 teaspoons water

1 teaspoon Shaoxing wine or sherry

1 teaspoon Hoisin sauce

1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

2-3 tablespoons sesame oil

1 teaspoon ginger finely julienned or a teaspoon of powdered ginger

10 ounces garlic scapes, trimmed of both woody and pointy ends and cut into 2-inch pieces

1 medium carrot, julienned

1/2 gold pepper and 1/2 green pepper, seeded and thinly sliced.

2 cups broccoli florets in bite-sized pieces

1-2 cups of sliced mushrooms

1/3 cup chicken stock, water, or sherry

1/2 teaspoon sugar

2 teaspoons soy sauce, or to taste

2 teaspoons cornstarch mixed with 1 tablespoon water

Instructions

In a medium bowl, add the chicken, cornstarch, water, wine or sherry, Hoisin sauce, and vegetable oil. Mix well and set aside for 20 minutes.

Mix 1/3 cup stock, water, or wine with sugar and soy sauce and set aside.

Place a wok over medium high heat. Add 1 tablespoon oil to the wok. Add the carrots, peppers, and garlic scapes. 

Stir-fry over medium high heat for 1 minute to give the scapes a good sear. Add broccoli.

Continue to stir-fry for another 1-3 minutes, until broccoli is bright green. Remove vegetables to a plate.

Add more oil and saute mushrooms until tender. 

Add chicken mixture. Rinse bowl with water/stock/sherry mix and add. Add vegetables back in. Stir all together, cover, and cook for a minute. Remove the cover and stir some more.

Add the cornstarch slurry, being sure to pour it directly into the standing liquid, and stir-fry for another minute. Reduce heat to low and adjust seasonings to taste. 

Serve hot over rice.

Readers: What's your favorite stir fry? Have you made garlic scapes another way? I have an ARC of Murder in a Cape Cottage dying to get out into the hands of a reader who promises to review it!

🥦🥕🌶

My most recent release is Batter Off Dead, Country Store Mystery #10, out now!

My next release is Murder in a Cape Cottage, the fourth Cozy Capers Book Group Mystery, out September 27.

"Scarfed Down," my Country Store novella in the collection Christmas Scarf Murder releases the same day.

We hope you'll visit Maddie and her Agatha Award-winning alter ego Edith Maxwell on our web site, sign up for our monthly newsletter, visit us on social media, and check our all our books and short stories.

Maddie Day (aka Edith Maxwell) is a talented amateur chef and holds a PhD in Linguistics from Indiana University. An Agatha Award-winning and bestselling author, she is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America and also writes award-winning short crime fiction. She lives with her beau north of Boston, where she’s currently working on her next mystery when she isn’t cooking up something delectable in the kitchen.

Stir Fried Asparagus by Maya Corrigan #recipe

If it's spring, it's the best time for asparagus where I live. Though the photo makes it look as if I made an asparagus bouquet, I was trying out a tip for keeping the vegetable fresh in the fridge. I'd always stored my asparagus in the vegetable bin, leaving it in the plastic bag from the grocery store. A week ago I read that it's better to take it out of the plastic bag and snap off the tough ends immediately. Then set the asparagus upright in a glass with a little water, cover it loosely with a plastic bag, and put the glass in the fridge. And it really worked! The asparagus looks almost as fresh as when I bought it six days ago.

I'm sharing a recipe for stir fried asparagus. The recipe serves 4, but the photos show me making half of it because I was cooking for two.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons peanut or olive oil

1 shallot, chopped, or 4 spring onions, green part in 1-inch slices and white thinly sliced

1 clove garlic chopped fine or put through a garlic press

1 pound asparagus, washed and cut into slices 1 to 1 1/2 inches long

6 ounces sliced mushrooms

1/4 cup lemon juice

2 tablespoons soy sauce

Salt and pepper to taste

Oops! Left out the mushrooms. They're in the photo below, already sliced. 

Heat the oil in a skillet or a wok. When it's warm, cook the garlic and the shallots. 

Add the asparagus and stir fry until barely tender. Add the mushrooms and stir fry them about 2 minutes or until the asparagus are cooked to your preferred tenderness. Thicker asparagus will take longer and skinny stalks less time.

Add salt and pepper to taste. Add the lemon juice and the soy sauce. Stir together for a minute and then serve.

Do you have a favorite way to cook asparagus? 

⚑ ⚑

Like many of you, I've watched the events in Ukraine with sadness and wondered how to help the people of that country. I'd like to share an opportunity to help. My publisher, Kensington Books, is sponsoring an online auction where all proceeds benefit relief efforts for Ukraine. The auction, which includes many items for book lovers, ends on Friday, March 25. Explore all of the amazing offers and consider bidding on an item for yourself or a friend. 
​

My auction item includes five signed Five-Ingredient Mysteries, the Mystery Writers of America Cookbook, a crime scene trivet, and a library-card-themed tote bag. To bid, go to:

https://www.32auctions.com/organizations/95605/auctions/121017/auction_items/3625156

The writers on Mystery Lovers' Kitchen are auctioning off a set of recipes. To bid, go to: https://www.32auctions.com/organizations/95605/auctions/121017/auction_items/3627989

⚑ ⚑

Maya Corrigan writes the Five-Ingredient Mysteries featuring café manager Val and her live-wire grandfather solving murders in a Chesapeake Bay town. Maya lives in a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. Before writing crime fiction, she taught American literature, writing, and detective fiction at Northern Virginia Community College and Georgetown University. When not reading and writing, she enjoys theater, travel, trivia, cooking, and crosswords. Visit her website for easy recipes, mystery history and trivia, and a free culinary mystery story.

Leave a comment on any topic in this post: stir frying, asparagus, Ukraine, or the auction

Ginger Chicken Chow Fun #Recipe by Leslie Karst

I have a weakness for Chow Fun. Those fat, toothsome noodles, pan-fried with vegetables and tender morsels of chicken or pork till everything takes on a slightly smoky flavor, make for a dish that’s simply irresistible to me.

And you know what? Chow Fun is pretty darn easy to prepare, as long as you have a wok or large skillet in your kitchen. And the dish can be made with any number of different vegetables and meats—or tofu. The trick is to pre-cut all your veg, cut up your meat or tofu and let it marinate for at least an hour before cooking, and pre-cook the noodles, then drain and toss them with oil so they don’t stick together while waiting to be added to the wok.

Then all you have to do is stir fry the ingredients in the order it takes for them to cook—starting with things like carrots and celery, which take the longest, and ending with leafy greens such as chard or bok choy leaves, which need only be wilted. 

Ginger Chicken Chow Fun

(serves 4)

Here’s a list of the ingredients I used, but feel free to change up the veg and meat to your own liking. (The amount of ginger I used—a 2” piece—makes for a quite gingery dish. If you don’t want it so spicy, use only a 1” piece.)

For the Marinade

1 T white vinegar

1 T oyster sauce

1 T soy sauce

1 T white sugar

1 T toasted sesame oil

1 t black pepper

For the Stir Fry

2 large chicken thighs or breasts, cut off the bone and cut into bite-sized pieces

1 T vegetable oil (for frying)

2 T sesame oil (1 to toss with the cooked noodles, 1 for frying)

3 T oyster sauce (to add at end of frying)

1 packet chow fun noodles (or 8 oz other noodles of your choice)

2 carrots, sliced into thin discs

5 spears celery, chopped

1 med. onion, sliced

1 bunch bok choy, chopped (separate the green from white)

1 1-2” piece ginger, peeled and finely chopped

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

chili pepper flakes for garnish (if desired)

Here are the ingredients I used (the plumeria blossom is merely decorative):

(I forgot to include the vinegar in this photo):

And here are the veg, chopped:

Directions:

Mix the marinade ingredients together in a medium bowl, add the chicken pieces, and toss together. Set aside. (If it’s going to be more than an hour before you cook the dish, put the bowl in the fridge, covered.)

Cook the pasta according to the directions on the package, making sure not to cook it past al dente (i.e., still having a bite to it), as it will be cooked more, later on.

Drain the pasta, then return to the pot and toss with 1 T sesame oil. Set aside.

Heat a large wok or skillet over medium-high heat, pour in 1 T vegetable oil, and heat till the oil starts to shimmer. Add the carrots and cook till they soften and start to brown on the edges, stirring often.

Add the celery to the pan, and continue frying and stirring often, till the celery starts to soften.

Next add the onions, and continue to stir-fry till they soften and start to brown on the edges.

Add the chicken along with the marinade.

Stir fry till the chicken pieces are cooked through and starting to brown. Then add the ginger and garlic.

Continue stir-frying for two minutes, then add the white part of the bok choy.

Cook for 2-3 more minutes, till the bok choy softens, then add the cooked chow fun noodles, along with 1 T more sesame oil.

You may want to crank the heat up to high at this point, as you stir fry the noodles along with the rest of the dish. Fry until the noodles start to brown and crisp up some, then add 3 T oyster sauce and stir it in.

Finally, add the green part of the bok choy:

Stir the greens into the chow fun, turn off the heat, and serve immediately. Top with chili pepper flakes, if desired.

Chī hǎo hē hǎo! (Enjoy your meal!)

The daughter of a law professor and a potter, Leslie Karst learned early, during family dinner conversations, the value of both careful analysis and the arts—ideal ingredients for a mystery story. Putting this early education to good use, she now writes the Sally Solari Mysteries, a culinary series set in Santa Cruz, California. An ex-lawyer like her sleuth, Leslie also has degrees in English literature and the culinary arts. She and her wife and their Jack Russell mix split their time between Santa Cruz and Hilo, Hawai‘i.

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Leslie also blogs with Chicks on the Case 
 
All four Sally Solari Mysteries are available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Bookshop.