Stir-frying anything in a wok!

This evening I'd like to talk about food. I love trying various kinds of food, both Oriental and Western ones but I try to avoid too cheesy dishes and I don't prefer food based on flour such as pizza just because I feel too empty as if I'm leavened by yeast. I normally cook Thai, Chinese and Italian dishes alternately. Lately I've also learnt to make the Japanese sushi (using smoked Norwegian salmon instead of raw fish), the Vietnamese spring rolls (they're different from the Chinese fried spring rolls!), and the Corean pork roast and kimchi. My son loves Italian spaghetti and pizza, however he eats Chinese spaghetti and Japanese sushi as well. When we stayed in Thailand on holidays, fortunately he didn't have any difficulties in food.

We, Chineses and most Asians, stir-fry anything in a wok. My mother-in-law is used to see me cooking my quick-to-do dishes and she often asks: "Do you stir-fry everyghing?" and I say "Yes, I do!". This technique is very useful when you want to clean up your fridge or when you have a little bit of everything left in the fridge. This Chinese way of stir-frying is called "Chap-chai"; that means "mixed vegetables". I'm letting you see my Chap-chai dish made 2 days ago.

First of all, collect all you want to put in the wok, such as various kinds of vegetables, meat, mushrooms, ect. Wash and slice them into pieces. Begin with warming 1-2 spoons of vegetable oil and fry chopped garlic. If you have meat (chopped pork, chicken, etc) put it after the garlic. This time I didn't use any kind of meat.

Then put each kind of vegetables, one after another in the wok, on medium-high fire. Stir them quicklly. I used what I found in the fridge: spring onions, carrots, daikon, a kind of green leaves (I don't know how to call it) celery and champignon mushrooms.

Add 1 spoon of sweet soy-sauce. It's a dark and thick sauce which gives sweet flavor.

Then add about 2 spoons of clear soy-sauce which gives salty taste and at last a pinch of pepper. Sometimes I also put some coriandro. Usually I use dried Chinese mushrooms but I didn't soak them in time as I hadn't planned it before. Only 10 minutes are needed and voilà!

Serve it with hot steamed Thai rice ;-) You can use other kinds of vegetables too. Savoy cabbage is perfect in the wok! Remember not to continue cooking for much time because the ingredients should retain texture and flavor.

At the end, I introduce my sauces, perhaps non-Asian readers may be interested to use them. They could be found in common Asian supermarkets and on-line Asian food stores.

From left to right: Seasoning Soy Sauce, Sweet (dark) Soy Sauce and Chinese Mushroom-flavored Soy Sauce.