Pork/Asparagus/Red Pepper Stir Fry

This is a quick stir-fry that can be done quickly, and used with almost any combination of meat and vegetables.  Here I used pork, red peppers, and asparagus.  These three complement each other well - they are all strong flavors that don't interfere with each other, and visually, they are all different colors and are easily cut into a long thin shape.



There are two main ingredients other than the meat and veggies: chili garlic sauce and soy sauce.

You are probably familiar with soy sauce, and the chili-garlic sauce is mostly chili and garlic, with some vinegar, salt and preservatives.  You may notice the rooster on the bottle and correctly conclude that this is basically the famous siracha sauce, but in a coarser grind.

First, cut up the peppers, asparagus and pork.  I like the long, thin shapes in stir fry.  It creates more surface area for the sauce to stick to, and they are cut small enough to get a mix of vegetables in each forkfull.

 

Once everything's cut up, heat some oil and add the chili-garlic sauce.  The whole cooking process should be done at a high temperature.

Let that fry up for a minute or two to get the flavors in the oil.  It may splatter due to the liquids in the sauce hitting the hot oil, and it will smell great - like chilis and garlic being fried.

Next up, add the pork, mix it up with the oil and cook it until it is brown all over.

When it is browned, but still not all the way cooked, add the vegetables and cook for a few minutes, stirring occasionally.  Given the high temperatures and small cut, its easy to overcook, so you have to pay attention.  Between the pork fat and vegetable juices, there will be a liquid in the pan.  To help this thicken into a gravy we'll add some cornstarch (about 2 tsp) to the soy sauce before it goes into the pan.  Cornstarch will get lumpy if added to a hot liquid, so mix it well before adding.  By the time I got it ready, everything was done cooking, so I turned off the heat as I added the soy sauce.

The only other thing I added was a squeeze of lemon juice.  Served with white rice and steamed broccoli.