Real Men Stir Fry

June 14, 2010, By Josh Katzowitz 0 comments

Josh Katzowitz

My mother in law, Susan, stood in front of the sink the other night, arduously peeling 1.25 pounds of shrimp. After stripping each crustacean, she lifted it to her nose and sniffed.

“Ugh,” she said after every third shrimp, “it smells too iodiney.”

We were making a real men stir fry for dinner and we were going to use shrimp in our creation. Only if Susan could get past her iodine-free fetish. Granted, iodine isn’t good for you. Some would say, well, it’s poisonous. But we wanted shrimp pretty badly, so we were taking our chances.

A minute later: another sniff, another, “Ugh.”

Yet, our next experiment in kitchen calisthenics would continue, even if we ran the risk of tasting a bit of atomic number 53 on our shrimp. Already, I had written about how real men broil and how real men roast, and to complete the trifecta, we broke out the wok.

Iodine smell or not, we would forge ahead.

The idea of stir-frying is to cook your dish quickly and with high heat. The best way to do it is in a wok, but in a pinch, you could also use a frying pan with high sides. The reason you need the high sides is for more effective stirring, and considering you spend most of your time stirring while stir-frying, the right cooking vessel is rather important.

The reasons you’d stir-fry are simple: it keeps the vegetables crunchy while the rest of the ingredients maintain their original texture (this also allows the vegetables to retain most of their nutritional value); it’s a more healthy alternative to other cooking (partially because of all those vegetables and partially because you’re not using much oil in which to cook those vegetables); and, after doing your prep work (cutting and slicing those vegetables), it’s a quick cook.

We start by heating peanut oil in the wok. The reason we use peanut oil is because of its high smoking point – basically the point at which the oil begins to smoke in the pan, which would then transfer unwanted flavors into the dish – and because it’s somewhat bland, which means the flavors of the vegetable and meat aren’t compromised.

Once we get the oil heated – and mind you, the pan needs to be really hot – we throw in the shrimp and cook it for three minutes. We’re stir-frying the shrimp first for two reasons. No. 1: We want to make sure they’re completely cooked, and you would most definitely do the same if you were cooking chicken or beef in the wok. No. 2: It’s a timing issue; the vegetables will take longer than the shrimp, so it’s easier to get the shrimp out of the way first.

The shrimp is finished, we move it to a bowl and we throw in the vegetables. First, we cook the “harder” vegetables – the onion, the red pepper and the broccoli florets. Next, we’ll heat the “softer” vegetables – the bok choy, the spinach, the mushroom and the water chestnuts.

We’ve eschewed carrots and celery this time, but they’re not bad additions to your stir-fry dish. Celery is crunchy and has a nice flavor, and carrots provide more color to the concoction. Remember, presentation is nearly as important as taste.

After everything has been cooked, we pick up the sauce we’ve already made. It’s a mixture of corn starch, soy sauce, garlic, cold water and a dash of sugar. The corn starch will thicken the sauce when it hits the pan, and we toss everything back in the wok with the hot oil and stir constantly for about 60 seconds.

With the egg rolls and the brown rice already on the dining room table, we serve.

The result is lip-smackingly tasty. The vegetables, as expected, are crunchy and scrumptious. The sauce, as expected, has thickened and has a nice flavor. The shrimp, as expected, are cooked perfectly and taste even better.

Better yet, there isn’t the slightest hint of iodine. Which means we live to fight another day – and eat the leftovers of our real men stir fry.

Josh Katzowitz lives in Atlanta and covers the NFL for CBSSports.com. He is a featured contributor to ManoftheHouse.com and author of the book, Bearcats Rising. He's currently working on a book about pro football that is scheduled to be released in 2012.