One of my favorite dishes to make is stir fry. It’s exciting! I like frying things. It fills the apartment with the scent of doing something. Most cooking does this, but stir fry does it best. It’s like when you walk into a temple and you smell them cooking. It gives me the feeling that something good is going on here. If I don’t smell cooking, I get suspicious!

Anyway, I’ve been wanting to come up with my own szechuan sauce recipe for years now. I’ve looked it up and tried to figure some stuff out, but nothing really did it for me. The onion/garlic to hing ratio is always a factor. And different brands of hing are different in their potency. So basically, the rule is “don’t use a whole lot of hing - measure what you think it should be and then take a little bit out.”

If you’re a good cook, the folks you’re cooking for will never taste the hing. If you can taste it, you’ve added too much.

I’m going to show you how I do my stir fry. Add whatever vegetables you like. I like broccoli. Tofu is a must.

Here’s what you’ll need-

Sauce:

6 T - Tamari
2 T - Dark Sesame oil
4 t - Sugar
1 T - Corn Starch
1/8 t - Crushed red pepper flakes

Other ingredients:
1 T - Dark Sesame oil (for frying)
1 t - Hing
2 t - Fresh ginger (finely chopped)
1/4 t - Crushed red pepper flakes (or more for hotter)
1 14oz package of extra firm tofu
1 red bell pepper
broccoli (see picture for how much I used - I usually use a bit more though)

And here’s how:

prep: clean and chop veggies, cut tofu into cubes, make the sauce and stir it with a whisk so there are no lumps

1) put the T of Dark sesame oil into a wok, head it on med high. Fry hing, ginger and crushed red peppers for 30 seconds.

2) Add bell pepper and fry for 60 more seconds

3) Add tofu and fry for a few seconds - don’t let things stick to the bottom.

4) Add a bit of sauce to the mix - maybe half of it. Fry for 30 or so seconds

5) Add broccoli and remaining sauce and fry until the broccoli is tender enough to eat. But careful it doesn’t get gummy - that’s just nasty.

And you’re finished!

So now I have a recipe of my own and don’t have to rely upon store-bought garlicy and unofferable sauces. This is every bit as good, though I’d like to make it a little thicker and I’m sure I eventually will.

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