Asparagus, shallots. ginger, garlic, carrots, shiitake mushrooms, and grape tomatoes. All of these vegetables have different textures and density. The beauty of stir frying is the ability to add the vegetables at the right time to ensure that everything turns out perfectly... all within just a few minutes.
The asparagus is briefly blanched prior to beginning the stir fry. After blanching, I rinsed mine with cold water to stop the cooking process and set it aside while I worked on other dishes for our dinner.
These vegetables are so fresh and easy to prepare. The entire process takes about three minutes. Just stir fry the ginger and garlic, add the asparagus, carrots (I used this tool to shred the carrots, it's amazing), and mushrooms, and then add the tomatoes and seasonings and sauce. Bam. Done. Just have everything prepped in advance.
I was a little worried about adding tomatoes to my two month old wok. I have read that you shouldn't add acidic foods until after six months of using your wok. Fortunately, these tomatoes are added at the very end, and my newly seasoned wok survived. I think it also helped that I popped some popcorn and fried some orange chicken in my wok just prior to preparing this dish.
Another cool thing about this dish is that it does not require any exotic ingredients. It's super easy. We served it with rice and an Asian seasoned pork tenderloin. It was a big hit.
I am participating in Wok Wednesdays. We are stir frying our way through Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge: The Ultimate Guide to Mastery, with Authentic Recipes and Stories by Grace Young. Buy this book. It's not just a cookbook. It's filled with stories and history lessons.
If you'd like to participate in Wok Wednesdays, please visit the Wok Wednesday's page.
The recipe for this dish can also be found here.
