Stirfry Awesome Sauce

We're a family of sauce lovers. We love sauce. So, it would be unthinkable to prepare a stirfry with no sauce. This sauce happened in a serendipitous manner when I started dumping stuff in my wok while making Pad Thai, in an attempt to get something resembling a Pad Thai sauce, due to the fact that I was stubornly refusing to pay the exhorbitant price the grocery store wanted for Pad Thai sauce. I have yet to find a recipe that satisfies my homemade Pad Thai Sauce cravings, but this Stirfry sauce is amazingly delicious, and has become one of our favorite meals.
I always get my veggies ready to go first. Leeks. Leeks, Leeks, Leeks. I LOVE Leeks. They are delicious. I would say that you can put whatever vegetables make your skirts fly up in this stirfry, but one thing I would not NOT put in this stirfry would be leeks (and garlic). They make it sing and dance in your mouth.

It's different almost every time I make it, but, I usually do some combination of these veggies/ingredients: Leeks, Garlic, Carrots, Red Bell Peppers, Green Beans, Tomatoes, Mushrooms, Corn, Peas, Fennel, Asparagus, Zuchini, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Kale, peanuts, cashews--all of it has been delicious.

Our Saucy Ingredients:

The Aftermath of my Sauce Measuring: You should know that I NEVER measure when I make this sauce, I always just dump the ingredients in the wok as I'm making it--these measurements were all for your benefit. Also, this was a good test to see if what I thought my measurements were was actually correct. They were. I feel a bit righteous about that, I tell you what.

Aren't veggies pretty? I love them so.

I prefer my stirfry with Rice Noodles, although it is really good with white or brown rice too, and I'm contemplating making it with Quinoa next time, just to mix things up a bit. Anyway, the PROPER way to make rice noodles is to use hot tap water, or just heated water and pour it over the noodles. Let it set for a 5-7 minutes depending on the thickness of your noodles, and then toss it in your wok with the other food, and saute' till done. I can't believe how many cooking blogs I've seen where people boil these noodles. That makes them very mushy and rubbery and weird.

I like toasted sesame seeds on my stirfry.

Noodles are going in!

Resting Flank Steak (my preparation of Flank Steak can be found here), and prepping our garnishments. Yum. Check out the awesome grill (pan) marks. That cast iron pan may or may not have come from a dumpster, and been majorly overhauled in my kitchen over the last few weeks. I love cast iron!!

The final, delicious product!

Stirfry Awesome Sauce

(sauce for a stirfry to feed about 6)

Rice Noodles, White Rice, Brown Rice

Meat (whatever kind you desire)

3 TBSP Sesame Oil

3TBSP Fish Sauce

3 packed TBSP Brown Sugar

1/4 cup Rice Vinegar

1/4 cup Soy Sauce

a few drops to 1 TBSP of hot chili oil (I usually do a scant 1 TBSP, but that does make this on the hot side. I can't really say how hot, because we eat a lot of pretty spicy food, so I might be jaded. Last night I dropped it down to 2 tsp, and I would call that mildly spicy(my kids didn't even say anything about it being hot, which was my goal. Anyway, if you're a spicy food wimp, go easy on this, or omit it, until you have a feel for how much you like.)

Juice of 1 lime

1/8 cup Cilantro (tossed in at the end to cook for a few minutes

Garnish with:

Toasted Sesame seeds

Lime Wedges

Chopped Cilantro

Chow Mein Noodle Crackers

Whatever else floats your boat

Enjoy!!

The following pictures are for Auntie G. Kiki and Debris felt that she should see their plate design.

Kiki's Plating

Debris' (deconstructed) Plating. The food cannot touch, you know.

P.S.--Sorry the formatting is so weird on this post. I'm having major issues with blogger these days, grrrr!