What's cookin?

My boss and co-workers gave me a fantastic Chinese cookbook as a going away gift.  I’ve already tried 4 recipes from it, and thought I’d share the winner so far. It’s just a stir-fry sauce, but we really like it and have made it twice so far—once with chicken, once vegetarian, and we think it’s better just with veggies. In fact, I think we’d eat it just sauce and noodles—the noodles here are so good! But it was a nice marinade for the chicken as well.

1 cup chicken stock
4 Tbsp oyster sauce
2 Tbsp Shaoxing wine (an amber-colored Chinese rice wine)
2 tsp light soy sauce (light in color, not light sodium. There’s an entire aisle in the grocery store devoted to the many types of soy sauce!)
2 tsp rice vinegar
2 tsp sesame oil
2 Tbsp cornstarch
2 tsp sugar
½ tsp salt (I skimped on this)
¼ tsp pepper

Here’s what I did: Heat peanut oil in wok until it begins to smoke. Add minced ginger until just golden. In this order, add carrots and broccoli, blanched bok choy, onions, peppers. When veggies are just about ready, add soybeans, snow peas, al dente egg noodles, and sauce.  The noodles will absorb most of the sauce in just a minute or two. YUM!

And for my BSO ladies who suggested I post pictures of bizarre foods for you all to guess, here goes. I’m starting with one I had no idea what it was in raw form, even though I’ve had this before. And now it’s sitting prepared in my fridge. In fact, as a hint, I could have added it to our stir-fry. Happy guessing!