Stir Fry Made Easy - Around the Kitchen Table

Hi everyone, I'm Chef Dennis Littley and welcome to Around the Kitchen Table. And it's again a beautiful day in Florida. I feel like that's just on repeat, auto-repeat here, but you know, it is what it is and I'm loving it. So today we're here and I have Susan Sarah. How you doing?

I'm good. How you doing, Chef?

Oh, just loving life. It's been wonderful here in Florida. You know, we're getting ready for the wedding, so that's coming up.

Yeah, congratulations, congratulations. I think you should invite the internet.

You know, again, the problem with the music is the issue. I would love to, or stream it. If I can find someone with an iPhone, because I thought I could stream Meerkat from an Android, but evidently all you can do is watch on an Android. So if I find someone, or maybe I'll take Lisa's iPad and try and stream something from there on it.

There you go. You know, I invited the internet to an event once. I'm serious, I really did. Some years ago, in 2006, I was newly enamored with roses and growing roses. And over a year or so, I had this big, huge garden. I mean, to the tune of 200 rose bushes. I was like nutty. I'm obsessed, whatever I do I'm obsessed. So I was in this forum and then I invited, you know, we're all like a group of friends, you know, you get to be friends, you know, like I feel friendly with our viewers and so on. So I invited them to my— and this is the early days, actually it was like 2003. These were the early days, so I put the invitation out there and I didn't put my address But after I did it, people came from Texas and stayed over my house. And I'm thinking, I just invited the internet to my house. You know, this is the early days of the wild, wild west. So don't invite the internet.

Well, I think in the early days it possibly was a little less dangerous because the people that were on were earnestly, you know, these pioneers of the internet. That weren't the trolls. I mean, I'm sure there were some in there still, but weren't those people that you had to be worried about as much?

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's like the '60s when we used to roam the neighborhoods, when little kids used to roam the neighborhoods with their friends.

Yeah, the good old days, huh?

Honey, oh my goodness. Yeah, so I went to the Architectural Digest show in New York last week, which is a big— I don't know, I'm not sure if you've heard of it, but it's a big, big event. In fact, it's the largest luxury home show in the country. Very, very huge. And they have a beautiful presence of kitchen and bath brands. And so I'm going to give you a little slideshow on what I saw there and some trends and appliances and things like that.

So that'll be fun. Wow, that's great. Take us with you next time. That would have been fun to walk through.

Yeah, so what's new with you?

Not a whole lot. Like I said, just getting ready for the wedding, doing some work around the house, making, you know, everything. When you have a house, everything's kind of done in steps. When events happen or you plan a party, that's when you hurry to get the next set of things done. So sometimes it's good to plan these events like every 3 to 6 months so you get done in the house what you've been putting off.

Yeah. Yep, that's true. So, you know, little— I know, little by little. But that's the journey. My husband and I, we have— that's all we've done our whole— I was going to say career— our whole lives in our homes is just going from one project to another. A whole lot of DIY in our case. And even this new house we moved in in November, it's kind of just what we do, you know.

So DIY is always good because number one, you save money, and number two, it makes it more yours. It makes it more personal.

Yeah, that's for sure.

That's the same with food. You know, you can order out all the time, but when you take the time to make it yourself, it's more personal. You're putting part of yourself into it, and whenever you do that, that's adding love.

Yeah, it really is. It's an expression. It's such a personal expression. I love that you're saying that. It's such a— there such a link from— and that's why what we do, you know, me talking design and you talking food, it's absolutely the same.

Oh yeah, you know, anything that we have a passion about and that we can translate into what we do in our everyday lives is a good thing. You know, and there's so many other things you can add to this mixture that people can give you of their personal talents to just not only enrich your lives but bring you closer with the bonds that you get from sharing something like that.

Absolutely, absolutely. So we have a new twist on your normal type of— well, actually everything is different, so today looks interesting.

Today we're going to talk about doing a little bit of stir-fry. And, you know, in the restaurants I worked at, I did— I wouldn't say it was stir-fry, it's still sauté because I'm not using a wok. Or a flat grill for the most part. But it doesn't mean that even though you're, you know, I'm not classically trained as an Asian chef, or I haven't really dabbled more than dabbled in Asian cookery, doesn't mean you can't do it at home. Because like everything else, you know, companies, places are making it easy and easier for you to do that. Your supermarket carries a nice line of Asian-style vegetables to help you in this. In fact, when I was picking this stuff up today, they actually had a bag a bag of stir-fry vegetables. I looked at it, and I was tempted, and went, "Mm, no. There's a couple things in there I didn't like the cuts on them." Pressed, and you don't have time, and you want to grab a bag of something that's already there in a bottle— now, I brought some sauces on. This is a premade teriyaki sauce, and I'm not pushing the brand, but it's something that I buy because. It is gluten-free. Right now, I'm soy-free, so I'm not eating anything with soy in it as well. It's all about my health and getting healthier, and this is one of the things the doctor had for me. I found out that there's an alternative to soy sauce, and it's called Bragg's Liquid Aminos.

Wow.

Yeah. It's supposed to taste like soy sauce. From this, you can make teriyaki sauce. You can make other things. I have not toyed with that yet simply because I'm on this crazy diet. Chef has lost 25 pounds.

Oh my gosh! Look at how loose that coat is fitting!

Yay! I've lost 25 pounds on it. I'm trying, like I said, I've been exercising, trying to get my health back. Stir fry, if you want to eat healthier, stir fry is actually a really great way to go. You can use olive oil. I did get some sesame oil today just because I want to be a little bit more authentic. Oh, it's dripping down my hand. I had it open. I do love the smell of sesame oil, so that's not a bad thing.

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, a little bit, a few drops, I mean, it adds to the fragrance.

The fragrance and the flavor, because we're talking about, like I said, this is not authentic Asian cooking. This is Asian cooking via an American. It's going to be changed, but just like Italian food, you go to Italy, they don't really eat all the things that we eat that we call Italian. There's a little liberties with food, and you shouldn't be afraid to try it. Like I said, there's so many different sauces. This is a teriyaki, which I've used before, and it's really tasty. You can, of course, make your own. There is also General Tso's. They have sweet and sours. There's a lot of things you can play with and a lot of different kinds of noodles that you can play with to make some really fun dishes.

What would you say you should look at, say, in the ingredients label?

When you look in the ingredients, I have not found organic ones. There may be some. I would look for organics, but this is saying tamari soy sauce, which is really a stronger soy, as far as I know. I actually have some tamari here as well, and it's gluten-free, and it's a lot more flavorful. And then this has got organic sugar, honey, sake, apple cider vinegar, garlic purée, rice vinegar, ginger purée, plum juice, and there's a little yeast, some canola oil, spices, arrowroot, and xanthan gum. So actually, all in all, this has got not something I can't pronounce. Not a lot of chemicals, so this is not looking like a really— no artificial preservatives or additives, so this is not looking like a bad brand. I'm not getting anything from any of these places I'm mentioning. This is just Chef Dennis shopping, trying to buy products that are good, healthier. If you're really on a strict healthy diet, this might not be something you want to use. But splurge every now and then.

Also, on the back of the label, in terms of sodium and sugar, and it depends on how much you use, I would guess, too.

This has got a pretty high sodium factor, but anything you eat Asian with soy in it is pretty much going to have a higher sodium factor. Let's see what the Bragg's has, just out of curiosity. The sodium on this is still relatively high. It's about It's less than half of that. Let me check my soy sauce. Oh, the soy sauce is really, really high, but we know that, right?

Yes, that's for sure.

This might be something for you to try, Bragg's Liquid Aminos. Like I said, I haven't played with it yet, but when I do, I'll make sure we do something with it.

Cool.

Okay, so we're going to start, and stir-frying is as simple as the vegetables you have in your house. Okay, you don't have to get crazy going out and buy a lot of them, but if you want to try and recreate something that's a little more authentic in the terms of Asian style, then you want to start getting some vegetables that they might use in dishes you get at your favorite Chinese restaurant. And, you know, like I said, you can eat these, you can buy lo mein at the grocery store, you can buy different cellophane noodles, different kinds of things, whatever you like, easy to cook. Serve it over that. If you're really healthy and you just want the veggies, you know, don't put any protein in it and eat that. You want to serve it over brown rice or quinoa or anything like that, you know, you can serve it however you like. You can take this, not have to eat what they're giving you at that store, you know, have it be soaked in grease or have to wait in line and not be sure of the origins or the cleanliness or anything that goes along with anytime you take out and make something nice in your own house. So what we're gonna do today is we're gonna start with our stir-fry, and I have some ingredients set up. Let's turn my cooker on.

Okay, and let me know when there's a good break for me to launch into the latest and greatest kitchen stuff.

This is gonna go pretty quick, so we may actually want to do that at the end.

Okay.

Alright, so I'm going to add my oil. And again, you can use olive oil, you can use any healthy oil you want. You can use avocado oil, you can use anything that you really enjoy using, coconut oil. And I've used coconut oil, and I actually do like coconut oil, and I've used that even for my buffalo sauce. And it doesn't quite thicken up when it's hot as much, but you can't even tell there's coconut oil instead of butter.

Wow.

Yeah, I know. I was amazed, too. I was like—

I've been reading about coconut oil and coconut— I don't know. Coconut seems to be in the food news now, doesn't it?

Coconut flour. There's coconut sugar that's lower in glycemic for you, and I do have some of that. I just haven't been baking. So I'm going to throw in the things that are going to cook a little more, like garlic is going to go in first. I'm going to sauté that. These snap peas I have— Now most Asian cooking you're going to see the flat piece, but these are the snow peas. But I like snap peas. There's nothing to say you can't build it the way you want to build it.

Love it. And when I go to Trader Joe's, I get those frozen bags of edamame.

Mm-hmm. They're great in stir-fry.

Yeah.

So I'm throwing in some shiitake mushrooms, and you could use regular mushrooms, portobellos, anything you like. Broccoli. The one thing you want to notice about broccoli is that usually when you get an Asian dish, they're a little small. You just want to break the big pieces up into smaller pieces.

Simple.

Carrots are going to take a little bit of time too, so they're going in here first. What I'm going to do is I'm just— and I would have used a smaller pan and I thought I was going to have more volume, so I went with a bigger sauté instead of instead of a larger pan. Now, if I was on gas and I had something like this, I could actually move it off the heat, or on a flat top, I could move it off the heat, pull my stuff over to the side that is done, and then continue cooking on the hot part.

Ah, okay.

What you do with a wok, you pull everything up around the corners and work from there. Now, what you want to remember about a stir fry is the vegetables are going to going to stay crisp. You don't want to overcook anything. Now I'm putting in some red pepper. I cut it in long strands to make it look— because again, you're eating with your eyes. You're eating color, you're eating freshness, and you're eating shape. You want to have some variety in shapes.

I love it because the texture and the color, it all contributes to You know, to the interest of the dish.

Absolutely. And now I'm going to add in some bok choy, which is lovely, fresh.

Nice.

And that's when you're always thinking there's pieces of celery, big pieces of celery in your Chinese food, is bok choy, because that's kind of what it looks like. Hey, you know, so I'm just stir-frying this up. And again, you know, if you like your vegetables a little more on the raw side, you keep your cooking down to a minimum. Now I'm going to add in some shrimp because this is going to be a shrimp stir fry because we know Chef loves shrimp.

Yeah.

Good Gulf shrimp are a wonderful thing. So now we're just going to put them in. I'm going to put them in the middle, move all the vegetables off the side, try to get them coated in a little oil, but I don't know if I got enough.

You know, I love that. I always love what mushrooms bring to a dish because it It brings a sort of savory, like a, I don't know, some kind of substance, savory substance. I love it.

Mushrooms are such a wonderful addition to any dish because they're low in calories, because they're high in water content. They also fill up a plate and they add, you know, they're an inexpensive option to increase the amount of what you're eating. Mushrooms for me are like a perfect food because you can add them into what you're eating, and they're healthy. They're on the Clean 15, so you don't have to worry about buying organic mushrooms. Most of these other vegetables that I bought are organic because you have to really be careful what you put in your body. You buy what you can. There's a list out there. I think we talked about it before, the Dirty Dozen and the Clean 15.

Yeah, we have to review that. I don't think we went over it in detail on this show, so I definitely want to hear that.

Well, the Dirty Dozen are vegetables you should always buy organic, you know, whenever you possibly can. And the Clean 15 is a list of vegetables that are safe not to buy organic, because let's face it, organic vegetables are a little more expensive. Expensive. It's not always feasible to buy everything organic just because of cost. Let's see what I— oh, here we go. We have some bean sprouts. Again, this is your stir-fry. It could have been asparagus and mushrooms. It could have been broccoli, just broccoli. If you want a broccoli stir-fry, if you want to add in something else that you like, Again, remember, if you're making for a lot of people, their eyes. This is basically done. You could season it with a little soy sauce or you could just season it with some salt and pepper and go from there. I'm putting a little crushed red pepper in here.

I was wondering about the seasonings, if there are other sauces or seasonings or— —that you would put in.

Tamari is, like I said, is your typical, or soy sauce is your typical, but we saw how much sodium is in there. There's actually less sodium in this sauce here, the teriyaki sauce. If I want to keep it pretty and plain and simple, I'll just probably salt, pepper it, and maybe even add a little vinegar to it, a little rice vinegar. In essence, it's done. You can use any of those sauces to add to it. And I hate to add them to it right now because it is so pretty. It is, it is, it just looks great.

You know what, it also looks easy to eat. You know, sometimes you have these things that are so big or too small, or— that seems very easy to eat.

Oh yeah. And that's because the vegetables were done so they were more bite-sized. Everything is cut up nicely.

Wow, I mean, this is done in record time.

This is record time. Wow. This is one of those cases where it's almost going to take you longer to cut the vegetables up than it is And this is basically a stir-fry that you've made up. There's shrimp. You can make it look pretty, pretty right there.

That looks great. Let's, let's, yeah, let's see the dish in the full camera. Let's see. Oh my gosh, that looks great. A little over a bit. Yeah. Oh, that looks nice. Wow. That looks fantastic. I can't believe it.

Yep. Like I said, now if you want to add a little soy sauce to it, if that's the flavor you enjoy. Let's say you're trying to be a little more healthy, but your spouse is like throwing caution to the wind, and like Lisa loves her soy sauce. I might not really want those flavors. I might want the flavors of all these wonderful crisp vegetables. You see how they still are crisp.

Oh, yeah. Right? That's terrific. Now, what about something like— what about something like brown rice? Oh, yeah. As an accompaniment.

Sure. This is where we talked about whatever you want to serve it on is fine. If you want to serve it on brown rice, if you want to serve it on white rice, it's easy to do. If you want to make up some fried rice, and we can do that another show, because because fried rice is really pretty simple. It's something you can make really relatively easy at home. This is a great dish. If you want to take it sweet and sour, you can add some of the premade of that sauce. You can use the teriyaki sauce. You can use— general sauce would be different. You can just build a little sauce out of— there's oyster sauce at the store. There is—

Hoisin sauce. You know what I like about that dish, too? Chef, kids can get involved with the prep, with choosing colors, with mixing. I think that's a terrific dish for kids, and it's so healthy.

Oh yeah, it is, and that's because— and if you don't want to use the sesame oil, let's say, you know, people— well, if you have a nut allergy, a sesame allergy too, you have to be careful, but If people are just not that keen on the taste, use olive oil. In most instances, when I was making large batches of this at school, I would use olive oil. I would just use— and garlic. Now, I didn't put any ginger in this. Ginger is also wonderful because— I forgot to get it this morning. It's not a deal breaker, either, because some people just aren't as fond of ginger. Just like I put the garlic in sliced, you could put some nice slices of ginger in there. And sauté it, and that really will give it a wonderful flavor and actually add some heat to it because the raw ginger cooked like that is a little hot. But ginger's got some wonderful healing properties as well as garlic does.

That's so great. I don't have the comment tracker up, but I do have another browser up with the comments, and so let's take a couple of comments. Richard Clarkson is saying 5-spice powder, fish sauce, sesame oil, and sesame seeds. Wow, these are good additions. A light version of soy sauce are spices that he uses.

Yep, they do, and look for them. There are a lot of gluten-free soy sauces as well if you're looking for those. Just be a little diligent on the labels, but 5-spice powder is wonderful. When you're using a new spice, I always caution just to be wary of it because it may add a little more than you bargained for.

So just watch. Mm-hmm. And Azzaline, our good friend Azzaline, says sesame oil flavor gets cooked away for the most part, so drizzle a little after turning the heat off.

Right. And we talk about that in pretty much any of our cooking. I always say when you're done cooking, what you put in last is what you're going to taste. And so it's like Italian cooking. Drizzle the really good olive oil over the pasta afterwards. That's when you're going to taste it. Yep.

Okay, so how about if we shift gears and take a look at some of the discoveries I found? Sounds good. At the AD show. Okay, that's beautiful, Chef, and we'll come right back to that in just a minute. And let's do the screen share. Here we go. Okay, so last week, as I said, I went to the Architectural Digest show. Big— representation of kitchen and bath. This is from the Thermador booth, and it shows— it looks like it's in use— a steam oven, steam convection oven, and the installation is very interesting as it's above the counter, sort of handy. So, you know, old-school knobs and kind of compared with electronics. So, you'll see a lot of that in the pictures I'm showing you.

You know, I gotta say, I love I love old school knobs. I think maybe being a chef, I'm okay with electronics, but knobs do it for me.

Interesting, because they have been coming back in the last couple of years too. So you can have, actually have both. This is a picture of Thermador refrigerators. And just look at, you know, they're so super flush and built in these days if you like that look. But then I'll show you soon something that isn't. Just a picture of a commercial range with interesting tile that many people like to have tile all over, all over their walls and so on and so forth. This is absolutely gorgeous tile. So here we have, I believe this is also Thermador, their steam oven, and there's so many selections. It will tell you how much steam you need for how long. Now I'm around the corner at the Bosch booth, and this is what their refrigerator looks like. It has LED lighting inside and beautiful, really beautiful touches inside, super flush built-in considering that it's generally affordable, you know, it's not a super luxury product, so it's a good value, very good value. Here we have the side handles on what just came out in Bosch ovens. Very interesting. We have a warming drawer below this Bosch oven. Beautiful. Just, you know, the electronics are beautiful. And here they have paid attention to smaller appliances for, you know, city apartments and so forth, so many reasons. And this is a 3-tier, 18-inch wide dishwasher. Yeah, why should only the 24-inch ones have 3 tiers and have the luxury features? So, Bosch has come out with this new collection of smaller appliances, and which is this really a need for, and they're wonderful. Flooring, I have found flooring is warm color, light colors, light warm grays, very, very light and, you know, with sort of a natural look to the wood. Here, this is also Bosch side-by-side installations. It's a very European type of look, and it just looks good. Symmetry. This is a Bosch cooktop induction, and you can actually put this grill on top of the cooktop and grill away whatever you want. It works.

That's an induction accessory for— that's a grill for the induction oven. It sure is.

It sure is. I saw that when I was out in California at Bosch, I think a couple of weeks ago. So here the refrigerator looks. Again, super built-in refrigerator, super built-in oven. Gorgeous. Again, attention to flooring, just what's happening in flooring. Now this is Thermador around the corner, and this is where I, I spoke before. You can put a plate on a serving, a baking dish, whatever, cooking vessel, any part of the cooktop, and it will pick up the heat. It will put the heat underneath it anywhere. You can put it on the diagonal, you can put it directing anywhere and it will pick up the placement. So that's cool. Again, flooring, light, natural figures to it. I just thought I'd pick that up. Smeg, you know, we like Smeg. They are old school and old school knobs. And again, I'm with the flooring, looking at flooring. Dekton, beautiful high-performance countertop. Hot, it takes heat up to 1,200 degrees. Beautiful. Yes, beautiful. So take the lasagna pan out of the oven. Beautiful. More flooring. Gorgeous, gorgeous. This is a brand called True Wine Refrigeration. High-end, beautiful. And a couple more. This is interesting because it shows that although white kitchens are still very popular, we're not so fussy with the details, and it's a cleaner look but still traditional. So this is, this is Rutt Cabinetry, gorgeous. Now look at, look at the over here where I have the mouse, and then I will show you, it slides, it slides open, you have a whole view, whole panel that slides open, storage, gorgeous walnut insert storage for dishes, whatever, More light flooring. I was seeing it everywhere, seeing that everywhere. This is LVE, I think, Italian appliances, beautiful. And there we go, Smeg's retro classic refrigerator. How about that? Yeah. Cool. So, I'm just going to flip through these a little more, and there's a brand called Big Chill, which also does retro. And how about this, a plate refrigerator? Wow. How about that? So this is a lot of cool, cool stuff. Wonderful. This is a real chef's refrigerator. It's by BlueStar, very new, and it holds a whole baking sheet which rolls out. You can see it rolls out with bins full of— beautifully designed, absolutely beautifully designed. French door ovens. And here, I mean, we get to eat, you know, the chefs making amazing things. Lots of great things. Oh, you just got to see this. This is an interesting sink concept. I believe it's called the Gallery. And everything moves back and forth so you can have cutting boards where you want cutting boards, and the sink is underneath where you want the sink. So, it's kind of different things that are suspended. Care for an oyster. So interesting in a table. It's a concrete table. Décor, you can control your oven from your app on your iPhone. Very, very cool. How about a wine station by Décor? Very popular. There you go, ready to go. Wow. Ready to go. So that is really cool. Décor is great. Made in America, just beautiful, beautiful products. And again, representation of what's happening with flooring. Interesting. There we go again. I must have been obsessed with flooring. And another traditional kitchen, which now we see cleaner lines, less— I call it frou-frou, you know, but just simpler and cleaner and, you know, just flat straight lines. So, Those are more flooring. Yeah, so that's it. So just a little glimpse of what's happening there in kitchens.

You had too good of a time there. Those things are beautiful. I did. Now what's the deal with floors? Where are we heading with flooring? You're saying lighter colors, but are we going back to real wood? Are we still using composites?

What are we doing? Well, you know, the engineered wood has come so far. And of course, now with Lumber Liquidators, wherever I went, that issue, I said, where is it made? Where's the flooring made? So I would say look for flooring that's made in the United States or Europe. Europe has even stricter standards than we do in terms of toxicity, you know, air quality, things like that. Wide planks are, are seen to be wanted now. Wide, wide wood planks. Yeah, I am seeing lighter shades of grays. People are loving the grays, but I see that as a trend. Tiles are, you know, larger format tiles, or, or even tiles that look like wood, or you can't even tell the difference until you step on them. So good question.

Great. So yeah, because I know I need a floor desperately in here too. And we haven't put it in. And I went back and forth whether to use real wood or, you know, some of the engineered wood. And that's a very good point you make about— and I always say that about food, why wouldn't it hold true for other products. Where's the country of origin? Because you want to make sure you're getting a quality product.

Yeah, look for it either in the US— to be really sure, US or Europe. And you'll pay a little more, but you'll feel good.

There's a reason you pay a little more. You know, it's about the quality and the assurance of where it came from and that, you know, you have someone to stand behind it. So, you know, you can always find something cheaper. Always. It's a matter of what your budget will take as the end result.

That's why your food and my kitchens are so in sync with one another, because who wants to cook in a kitchen that's not healthy, and who wants to cook in a kitchen with food that's not healthy? They go hand in hand.

Let's say maybe I'm following in my idol Graham Kerr's footsteps, because he was once the most dangerous man in America. Quoted by the American Heart Association because of all the butter and cream he used. Now since I can't eat butter and cream, maybe my cooking is going to take a turn towards like Graham's did and went really healthy.

Beautiful dish, Chef. Beautiful, healthy, great for kids. It just has checkmark on everything.

Again, I use shrimp again because whenever I can find an excuse to use them. Not that we eat shrimp 3 or 4 times a week, don't get me wrong, we don't. A lot of them are in my pictures because they look nice or in my recipes. This is a great dish. I have made this using tofu if you can eat tofu and like tofu. This is easily done with chicken. It could be easily done with some strips of beef. Oh, good, yeah. Or a fish. Don't think just shrimp when you think seafood. Think any other fish you might like. And serve it with it. You could make chunks. A lot of times when we're doing other proteins, we'll make them in squares or pieces that you can stir-fry. The whole idea with the stir-fry is whatever you're using, you want it to be able to cook fairly quickly. So when you cut protein for it, you want that protein to be able to sear and cook within about the time the vegetables do. So keep that in mind. If not, you want to cook it separately and then add it in almost done, you know, partially cooked. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, so I guess we're good. We've got a lot of nice comments, a lot of people watching, and thank you so much for being around our kitchen table today, and we'll see you soon.

Bye-bye. Bye.