It’s that time of year! Bright green, succulent stalks of asparagus are at the market again. And my Chicken Asparagus Stir Fry is the best way to showcase them. Asparagus needs a quick cooking method to really let their delicate flavor shine, so a stir fry is ideal. Add a savory sauce and tender, marinated chicken and you have a complete meal, perfect to welcome Spring.
I usually use chicken thighs in recipes because I find them more flavorful, but breasts cook more quickly and this is a very fast stir fry dish. I infuse them with extra flavor by briefly marinating them before cooking. I add a little cornstarch to it as well, which helps create a velvety texture and also protects the chicken from the high heat that we’ll be using. This Chinese technique is a restaurant standard in producing tender, moist meats while still being able to use blisteringly high cooking temperatures.
I set the chicken aside to marinate while I get everything else prepped. You can also prep the chicken the day before and store it in the fridge until ready to use.
This classic stir fry deserves a classic sauce and we include all of the powerhouse ingredients like soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, oyster sauce, toasted sesame oil, and white pepper. Just whisk everything together and set aside. If you’ve noticed in most of my recipes, I like to make the sauce separately and then add it later to the dish. There are a couple reasons I do this.
First of all, it’s a habit. In restaurants, we never add a little of this and a little of that to make the sauce that goes into a dish. In a kitchen with many cooks, that’s the makings of a disaster. The only way to have consistency in food and having it taste the same all the time is by having the sauce prepped and ready to use. It’s the closest you can have to a guarantee that the food will taste the same each time.
Second, it’s too easy to forget something in the heat of the moment. When you have more that two or three things that go into a dish, it’s very easy to forget something when you’re busy. Better to know that your sauce is right there at your fingertips rather than scrambling to get the soy sauce or measure out the cornstarch as your chicken starts to smoke before your eyes.
And finally, I like to keep my kitchen as organized as possible while I’m cooking. I hate looking at the kitchen after I’m done cooking and seeing a mountain of clean up ahead of me. It takes a little bit of joy away from my meal. So once I make the sauce, I can put everything away before I start cooking.
While you can it most of the year now, asparagus is at its peak in Spring. Look for firm stalks, with tightly closed tips. Stay away from discolored stalks or any packages that look wet. I prefer fat spears of asparagus if I have a choice. They have better flavor and texture and they have good heft for a stir fry. But the bottom line is freshness. Get whatever looks the best at the market.
The bottom couple inches of the spears are too tough and woody to eat, so first you need to remove it. If you bend a spear, it will snap in the exact right spot. I can quickly snap through the bunch in a minute. If you find this tedious, you can snap one and then eye ball where to cut off the ends with the knife. Just hold the bunch in one hand and cut off all of the ends in one shot. Once you’ve discarded the woody ends, cut the spears into short lengths and set aside.
Now that the chicken is marinated, the sauce is ready, and the asparagus is prepped, it’s time to stir fry. Remember the cardinal rules of stir frying, which are especially important in this Chicken Asparagus Stir Fry because it’s so quick:
Now I continue cooking until the sauce is thickened and the chicken is cooked through, which is just a minute or two. Altogether the cook time should only be about 5 minutes. You can’t beat that!
Love how quickly stir fries get dinner on the table? Check out:
When you try this delightful Spring stir fry, let me know that you think. Rate and leave a comment on the recipe below, and tag us in your pics @funkyasiankitchen, we love seeing your creations!
Marinated Chicken:
Keywords: asparagus, stir fry, chicken , chinese, spring, Shaoxing wine
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I’m not the world’s biggest red meat eater, but I do love me some lamb. Especially a lamb dish that comes together with only 20 minutes of hands on time. My Mongolian Lamb features incredibly tender meat (thanks to a little trick) with a rich and savory sauce. Lots of fresh ginger adds a blast of tingly heat, and shiitake mushrooms provide a nice earthiness. Served with rice, it’s a quick and delicious meal, so let’s go!
I like to use a boneless leg of lamb for this dish. It’s one of the most common cuts of lamb available in the US and it’s relatively affordable. Moreover, it’s easy to handle and prep for a stir fry. If you’ve purchased a whole boneless leg, it’s probably around 4 pounds, which is a lot more than you need for this recipe. I would suggest cleaning the meat and then freezing the rest for another use. If you know what you’re going to be using the lamb for, go ahead and cube or slice up the rest before freezing. This way you have nice prepped lamb waiting for you in the freezer!
If you’ve ever wondered how the stir fry meat in Chinese restaurants gets so tender, velveting is the answer. A little corn starch or baking soda mixed with the meat helps to tenderize it. Velveting also helps protect proteins from the high heat when stir frying so the meat doesn’t get overcooked. As with any marinade, I also add some flavor to my velveting mixture, in this case a little soy sauce and sugar to bump up the savoriness.
Next I add the oil, mix again, and let the lamb rest in fridge for about an hour. Most of the time, when I’m adding flavors or seasonings to meat, I will mix it all together first before adding oil. Adding oil helps proteins cook evenly, but I add it last because I want the flavors to penetrate the meat; oil can prevent that from happening by forming a barrier around the meat.
Mongolian sauce is both a little sweet and a little spicy. Sticking to its Taiwanese roots, this recipe doesn’t make a lot though so if you like things extra saucy, increase the amount of sauce by half. It comes together quickly with ingredients you likely already have on hand, with maybe the exception of the ground bean sauce. Ground bean sauce is actually made from fermented yellow soy beans, and it has lots of salty umami. It’s definitely different from miso, but in a pinch, you can substitute it with good results. Making the Mongolian sauce is as easy as whisking together all the ingredients until the sugar is dissolved.
Full disclosure, this recipe takes a lot of liberty with the name and I’m pretty sure no one in Mongolia ever heard of a dish like this…in the US, there are many versions of Mongolian Beef and Lamb, mostly with a heavy Chinese influence. This one is a version we’ve had on our menu for many years. It’s incredibly popular because it has familiar flavors with a little twist.
Like all stir fries, Mongolian Lamb comes together very quickly. So it’s best to have everything measured and ready by the stovetop. Prep the mushrooms, slice the scallions, and mince the ginger and garlic.
Once everything is prepped, you’re ready to start stir frying! The key to a successful stir fry is to get your pan as hot as you can and keep it that way through the cooking process. You also want to keep a pair of chopsticks, tongs, or a heat proof spatula on you at all times because you’ll be moving the food around almost the whole time to keep your ingredients cooking evenly without burning.
The cooking process takes just a few minutes. The lamb is sliced so thinly that it doesn’t require much time. By the time you pour in the sauce, it’s pretty much cooked through.
Mongolian Lamb is proof that deeply flavorful dishes don’t require tons of time. It’s just the thing for weeknight cooking, and served over perfect rice it’s a complete meal. Take a moment to rate and comment on the recipe below, we love hearing from you! And don’t forget to tag us in your pics @funkyasiankitchen, we love seeing your creations.
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*It’s important to let the meat sear first on one side before you start moving it around the pan. Very few household ranges can keep pans smoking hot after you add a pound of cold raw meat. Cooking it on medium high heat without disturbing it for a minute gets some browning on the meat.
*Don’t be afraid to cook on high heat-that is what makes a stir fry great. As long as you are moving things around constantly, you’ll be fine. But make sure you lower the heat when adding the sauce. The high sugar context in the sauce will cause it to burn if the heat is too strong.
Keywords: mongolian lamb, stir fry
Hi there!
I’m Kazu, a restaurateur in Miami who wants to show you all of the best tricks for creating restaurant quality Asian meals at home.
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