Asian Solidarity Stir Fry

At the suggestion of my dear friend, Sri Panchalam, I’m starting this series of writing about food and cooking. For me, cooking encompasses several of my life’s passions. Culture and race, history, and identity. But I’m not a “foodie.” I love food, yes. I love how it connects people, builds a foundation for family and culture, and gathers people around it as something to savor. Flavors, textures, and smells form the basis of memories we hold onto our whole lives. And while I appreciate a fine dining experience, I also love Craft Mac n Cheese, Flamin’ Hot Cheetohs, and Taco Bell.

3 or 4-Asian Chicken Stir Fry

When I taught at APU, my boss would sometimes corral me into joining him for lunch in the dreaded cafeteria. This would have been in the early to mid-2000’s. I would have to sit with him, whom I liked, at the table of old racist, sexist White professors, whom I detested. You can read about them in my book, Asian American Apostate.

One fine lunch hour, I hesitantly approached the serving area and grimaced as I read the tag above a vat of…something. “Asian Chicken.” It was chicken. In a brown soy sauce looking goo. “What is that?” I asked the poor student worker. “It’s Asian chicken,” the kid said, looking at me as if I couldn’t read. “But what is it? Which Asian country is this from?”

The poor kid making less than minimum wage just looked at me, confused. “Do you want it?”

I got it. It was dry and it had soy sauce on it. And nothing else. Asian chicken. Whatever.

My boss chuckled at me as we sat at the dreaded table of dickheads. He had to defend me every semester for making trouble in areas of race, sexuality, and gender. And here I was busting the chops of some poor White undergrad just trying to pay for school. “So, what’s White people chicken?” I said as we sat down. The racist old guys rolled their eyes. The feelings between us were clearly mutual. I choked down the chicken as I listened to the old guys rant about how women were ruining the school. If I weren’t there, I’m sure they would have been talking about the non-Whites ruining everything, too.

But this bit of writing is not about race or APU or anything to do with deconstruction. I’m done with all of that, although it will come up here and there. No, this is a cooking post about…Asian chicken.

One of my best friends is Sri Panchalam.

She was the singer and leader of our band Doctors and Engineers. I was the bass player.

But Sri is also an accomplished civil rights attorney and an amazing cook. Our bond is steeped in music, social justice, and food. We’ve cooked together a lot over the past 12 years, and she has shown me a lot of great Indian food techniques.

Using Chinese techniques to prepare and cook the chicken (velveting and high heat wok cooking) I combined flavors of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean food into this dish, which Sri really likes. It was her idea for me to write this down and tell this story. So, when Sri says she really likes something I cooked, it means a lot. As a result, you get my snarky writing and storytelling and a new recipe to try.

Warning: All three groups of aforementioned Asians will probably take great offense at this food. Call it fusion. I put a splash of fish sauce into all my cooking, so you could accuse me of using Southeast Asian flavors, too. Call it a culinary abomination or an Asian hate crime. I don’t care. Everyone who has eaten this dish or any of the previous versions have loved it. Picture ancestors rolling over in their graves. And it’s surprisingly not too hard to make.

Actually, I have no idea what your cooking experience might be, so you can enjoy reading this and decide for yourself. I don’t have a recipe with measurements. I just eyeball it, depending on how much chicken I have.

Here’s what you will need:

-Chicken. I use thigh meat. Sometimes I buy the boneless skinless thighs, and sometimes I just cut the bones out of thighs with kitchen shears. This is much cheaper. I can make enough food for 4-5 people with just $8 of thighs at Vons.

- Chinese black bean garlic sauce. I use Lee Kum Kee that I can get pretty much anywhere.

- Gochujang. Which is Korean. Duh.

- Egg whites

- Corn starch or flour

-Soy sauce, fish sauce, sesame oil, mild or sweet vinegar, and honey or sugar

-Any vegetables you have on hand. I usually use broccoli, asparagus, spinach, kale, bok choy…

-High Smoke Point oil. I use peanut or corn oil. Sometimes avocado oil.

Years ago I watched some youtube videos of Chinese chefs. When they prepare chicken for stir fry they use a technique called “velveting.” In those videos, the chefs often used oyster sauce for umami, but I just add fish sauce to the sauce later. So my “velveting” might be “wrong” to the purists.

I cut up the chicken into pieces and put them in a mixing bowl. Depending on how much you are cooking, you’ll use one egg white for every pound or so of chicken. I just make sure the chicken is coated. Then I add enough corn starch or flour to coat the chicken. Use a good amount, so that the starch or flour is still mostly dry on the chicken. Set it aside and let the starch or flour become moist. Note: when you stir fry the chicken, it will get crispy at first, but the point of velveting is more to give the chicken a rich, thick coating for the sauce to stick to.

Now I make the sauce. I use equal parts black bean garlic sauce and gochujang. Sesame oil, enough soy sauce to loosen up the thickness, and a splash of both fish sauce and vinegar. Then I add honey or sugar to taste. This is a crucial step. The black bean garlic and gochujang are extremely savory, so the sweet and added sour of the vinegar round out the flavors. Chinese, Korean, and Japanese with the caveat that teriyaki isn’t really from Japan. Incidentally, if you want more of a teriyaki vibe, you can add grated ginger to the sauce

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Now heat up the wok or cast iron pan. Add enough oil to coat the cooking area. Once you see signs of smoke, add the chicken. Keep it moving to ensure all sides are cooked evenly. I cook the chicken to about ¾ done.

Then I add the vegetables and sauce. I don’t like overcooked veggies, so that’s why I add them here. Combine everything and let it sit for a 30-40 seconds. This will make some nice carmelization of the sauce. I do this a few times, moving everything around each time.

If you’re feeling fancy, you can garnish with cilantro or chopped green onions. I serve with rice and kimchee. And of course some kind of hot sauce. Sriracha, chili crisp, anything you want. And if anyone wants to forward this to the APU cafeteria, just don’t tell them it’s from me. They hate my fucking guts over there. I don’t blame them.

As you might have noticed, most of the work is in the prep, with the cutting and mixing of the sauce. The cooking only takes 5-6 minutes.

We have some fancy cookware, but I do almost all of our cooking with our $20 wok and two $25 cast iron pans. More on that later.

Let me know if you have any questions, but save your intra-asian hate. Ain’t got time for that shit. Solidarity and tasty food to you. Eat well and FUCK ICE.