Pad thai

I've done this a few times now. It isn't what you get from a Thai restaurant. Apparently it's also even closer to the real thing than what you can get in this country.

I based this largely on several readings of this extensive post. It's really good. And then I ignored much of the advice and came up with the following.

So, two parts: sauce and assembly.

Sauce

• 1/2 cup fish sauce, more or less. The stuff is salty so take that into account.
• 1/2ish cup -- maybe more -- rice wine vinegar. This was basically because tamarind paste is hard to find; I'm sure it's better done the right way.
• Pure cane sugar -- more than expected
• Sriracha (plenty)
• Garlic-chili paste (also plenty)
• Water to take salt down and get a sauce that will reduce properly under very high heat

Let that all combine for some hours on low heat. You can even keep it for some weeks. Fish sauce is an amazing preservative.

Prep

As per suggestion, I've decided that woking up one serving at a time is the best way to go. Not only does it let you customize to the taste of your fellow eaters, it just comes out better.

But first, noodles. I've used pho. Soaked in hot tap water for less than about five minutes. Make sure these are ready to go.

Take your choice of proteins. I like chicken for this; beef is too aggressive, I hate shrimp, and I don't much care for tofu. If you're going to use shrimp, be sure to add it later than you would the chicken (which goes in first).

Slice your chicken, preferably breast for this (trust me, you won't miss the fat), quite thin. This is rather important, as you really don't want any single serving to be in the wok for more than, say, 90 to 120 seconds.

Crush some peanuts, preferably unsalted. The easy way: put a bunch of peanutes in a ziploc bag and either use a rolling pin to roll them into near pulp or, say, a cast iron pan. Either works.

Dice some green onion.

Chiffonade some basil, preferably Thai or purple, but we've talked about those before.

Wash some bean sprouts. More than you think.

If desired, let about an egg per serving come to room temp. I also hate egg, so I don't add this myself, but it's not only traditional, it's almost required to be "real" pad thai.

Assembly

Heat peanut oil, plenty, in a wok. Toss in any non-seafood with a small ladel-full of the sauce. Cook that nearly through as quickly as possible.

Add noddles and bean sprouts.

If using egg, push everything in the wok to one side save some of the sauce and basically scramble the egg very quickly on the bottom of the wok.

Add shrimp here and make damn sure the heat is high enough to cook quickly.

Add peanuts.

Add more sauce, probably a few ladels if your heat is high enough.

Finish with basil, green onion, etc.

Serve with lime slices and more peanuts for maximum effect.

Mmm. Realish pad thai.

Early summer risotto

First, read up on the basics of a decent risotto.  I'm not inclined to repeat myself, so that's what you get for an introduction.  (And seriously, this stuff becomes second nature after awhile; it's not like you have to read a recipe for risotto and do more than skim to see what ingredients are added when.  It's a great dish for experiments.)

This is a side dish, I suppose.  It can work well with anything from salmon to chicken to beef.

Start off the dish as usual: onions, garlic, rice, wine, stock in that order.

Let that go about half way to done; judging that might take some time.

Add about a dozen capers, drained and rinsed, choped finely.

Aside: capers are neat.  Some people have them; they're basically crazy.  What they do is add a floral note to a dish that you basically can't duplicate.  Probably because they are, in fact, flower buds.  Subtle but it adds quite a bit.

Finely chop about half a red bell pepper.  Grate sufficient cheese.

Don't forget to keep stirring and adding liquid.

When the mixture is about 90% done (ie, it's getting noticeably harder to stir), add the red pepper.

Finally, the basil.  Cooked basil loses flavor fast, so this goes in nearly at the end.  If you have fresh, great.  If perhaps you froze some from last year, make sure you give it enough time (and hot liquid and massive amounts of stirring helps here) to defrost.  Chop finely, add that, let that go for another minute or two, then add the cheese, take off the heat, and stir it in.

Works wonderfully.

Mustard green salad

Mustard greens are tasty, and when they're in season they're quite cheap.  So check around.

This seemed to work out well:

• Mustard greens
• One sliced red pepper
• One sliced cucumber; don't bother scooping seeds or anything but do peel it
• Bunch of chopped walnuts
• Goat cheese
• White balsamic vinegar

Quite tasty.  The flavors all compliment one another.

If you're somehow goat cheese-impaired (not that I have anyone in mind), a mix of blue and feta might do you, but it won't be as good.

Pseudo-minestrone

This is truly not seasonal, but it came up in my archives and I don't want to lose track of it.  Back to risotto shortly, I'm sure.

To start, sweat one large red onion in a, oh, cast iron pot.  Crush and peel garlic and add halfway through the sweat.  Near the end, add four or five chopped, but not diced, carrots.

When said sweat is done, add:

• 2 cans diced tomatoes with liquid
• 2 cans garbanzos (liquid optional; the flavor really varies if you add it or don't)
• 2 cans chicken broth
• Thyme
• Oregano
• Parsley (dried)
• Rosemary
• Red wine vinegar

Bring to a boil.  Add:

• Eightish baby red potatoes

Simmer for 45 minutes.  Add:

• Two zuchinis all sliced and diced as you'd like them.

Let that go for ten minutes.  Serve, adding some greens (mustard worked great on my first try).

Lots of leftovers but it reheats like a dream.

Orange quesadillas

Dead simple if a little weird.  But trust me; they're good.

Slice:

• 1/2 medium orange
• 1/8 or so white or yellow onion

Preheat the oven to 450.

Sprinkle a large (I think we're calling these "burrito size" now) tortilla with the onions.  Add either sliced or shredded cojack in a relatively thin layer.  Sprinkle the orange chunks over that.  Add Cholula for some heat; you really don't want to add the acid that comes from Tabasco here.

Layer on another tortilla.

Bake for 15 minutes on a high rack, flipping once at about 10 minutes.

Let that cool, slice, and eat.  Absolutely delicious.

Edit: and by all means serve this with guacamole.  It really is a perfect compliment.

Risotto: basics

Back to the basics.  I haven't started to go full-on chile and heat just yet.

And so: risotto.

Now, I'm going to assume that almost everyone who actually reads this knows what risotto is, but for the sake of anyone who doesn't and still stumbles across this: it's rice.  Creamy, delicious rice.  Usually with other stuff in it.  It's labor-intensive (less so if you trust Alton Brown ; I've never tried his method).

So here's a basic recipe; a few variations are to come whenever I get them properly written up.

Chop one medium yellow onion and soften in olive oil until transparent in a medium round-sided pot or pan.  A bit of garlic here wouldn't be uncalled-for.

In the meantime, bring some sort of broth (use chicken unless you have a reason not to) to a simmer in another, smaller pan.

Add about a cup of arborio  rice to the pot, take the heat up a bit, and toss vigorously.  Eventually, the edges of the rice grains will get translucent.  This is a good thing.

At that point, hit the pot with a cup or so of wine (again, use white until you get the idea down; I'm actually pondering what would happen with sake at this point).

Keep stirring; the alcohol will more or less vaporize.  When that's only slightly wet, start adding your heated broth.

Then stir.

Then add more broth.

Then stir.

Start at a low heat; knowing when to add more liquid is much easier if it's a slower process.  Higher heat will indeed finish the dish faster, but it also risks ruining it.  Especially when you live in a mile high desert.

Repeat.  And repeat.  Your arm will get tired.  So drop the heat and grate some cheese.  AB calls for reggiano exclusively; I like asiago as per usual.

Go back to stirring.  Eventually this mixture will firm up; the stirring is noticeably harder.  Taste the rice; it should be done.

So add the cheese.  Slowly, stirring to incorporate.

And you're done.  Take that thing off the heat and serve.  It will be delicious even plain like this.  But there's oh so much more that can be done.

Pico de gallo

Pico de gallo.  Yeah, this usually means some combination of tomato, onion, and sometimes something vaguely hot; often jalapeno.  It's usually boring and comes off more as a salsa that someone forgot to blend than anything else.

This is not the pico de gallo I grew up with.  Not even close.  What I know, as far as I can tell, is all New Mexico.

Combine:

• Four fine chopped clementines (or equivalent amount of orange; the clementines are nicely sweet though)
• One medium jicama, cubed up into something like 3/8 inch chunks
• One generous handful of parsley (replace with cilantro if desired), choppped
• Red pepper flakes to taste
• Optionally, you could add some lime juice.  I'm personally not a fan, especially if you've already used clementines -- there should be more than enough liquid in there already.

I suggest taking the amount of red pepper flakes up or down depending on how much the pico is supposed to be a cooling agent for other foods.

Toss all that around and it's ready to serve.  If you've never used jicama you're in for a real treat.

And for goodness' sake, don't use tomatoes.

Black beans

This one's easy.  And tasty.  You can modulate spice if need be, and they're slightly (but only slightly) on the unusual side for just standard black beans.

Chop:

• One half white/yellow onion.  Pretty small bits.
• Four or five cloves of garlic

Sweat in olive oil.  Add:

• About 1/3 of a 7oz can of chipotle peppers in adobe sauce, rough chopped, with some of the sauce itself.  This stuff is potent, as it turns out.  Save the rest for another day.

When that's all nicely combined, add:

• Two cans of black beans, one of them without liquid
• One can chicken broth

Bring all that to a boil and reduce it down until the liquid is just covering the beans.  Cover, reduce heat, add some salt.  You can hold that warm as long as you need and beans will just get softer and mushier, which can be desirable.

Tri-tip burritos

For some reason summer for me means tri-tip.  And tri-tip is good.  And very occasionally on sale enough to justify.

After experiencing several experiments on a small smoker (thank you very much Mr. McCormack; all was quite welcome) I decided to give it a shot on my own.  Which naturally meant not traditional smoked beef; that would be too mundane.  Even if I did have a smoker.

Solution: slow-cooked, heavily marinated beef with green chile in a tortilla.  How could that go wrong?  (In this case, it actually didn't.)

Marinade/sauce

In a food processor, combine:

• Garlic
• Cumin
• Oregano
• Ancho (for smokey flavor so not too much; this isn't your heat source)
• 1/4 package of hot chile powder (hot molido, in this case; this is your heat source)
• 50-50 white vinegar and water until there's a thin paste (it's easy enough to modulate the amount of vinegar down a bit, but you do need a decent amount to tenderize the beef)

Cover your tri-tip with this stuff, pour the rest in a baking pan with the meat in it, cover and chill.  Probably best overnight, and probably better if you pierce the meat several times.

Green sauce

The next day, or whenever you're nearly ready to start actually cooking the meat, start up your green sauce.

In a sauce pan, sweat in olive oil:

• 1 medium onion, 1/4 inch dice or so
• Garlic, minced
• Some whole cumin

In the meantime, thaw 1 container green chile (yeah, i used Bueno extra hot for this as well; I could live on that stuff).

When the onions are basically transparent, add:

• 1 yellow or orange pepper (red will do; going for sweet here) in smallish chunks

Sweat that down a bit, then add the green chile (likely still partially frozen), some water, and turn the heat up.  Let it come to a boil.

Thicken as desired with cold water/flour until reasonably thick -- you want it to drop, not run if that makes sense.

In the meantime, start on the meat.

Meat

Bring an oven to 450 or so.  Bring meat back to room temp on the counter; probably start this just before you start on the green sauce.

To do this properly, heat up your cast iron and Maillard that thing on all sides.

Then throw the meat in a baking pan, uncovered, for 20 minutes or so (100 F?) and toss it in the hot oven.

Take it out, remove from pan and set the nice pasty bits aside, wrap in foil and return to the oven until it reaches 125 - 130.

Remove, let sit for 10 - 15 minutes in the foil, then slice thin against the grain.  Return slices to the now likely cool sauce with any retained juices.  Toss around to coat a bit.

Final product

Heat tortillas.  Place meat in tortillas.  Smother in sauce.  Try to close and eat without making a ridiculous mess.  Chopped fresh cilantro would be awesome here as well.  Consider avocado and black olive as well.  Maybe even some lettuce of some flavor.

Serve with black beans perhaps?  Pico de gallo wouldn't hurt either.

Basic beef stir fry

(Part 3 (1 is here; 2 is here) of what I've taken as a challenge from my cousin.)

Since I can't sleep, I might as well write, right?

I'm assuming that I got my taste for noodles with stir fry from my mother who got it from Taiwan.  Most parts of China and southeast Asia would insist on rice instead.  So we'll go with rice this time.

First, get your rice started.  Do it as you will.  I'm not violently opposed to rice cookers even.  But a stove top Basmati really is better.

Basic ingredients:

• Beef, sliced thin.  Preferably a cut without too much gristle.
• Bell peppers, sliced as you like, but I also like to do long and thing for this
• Water chestnuts, lightly chopped
• Bok choy, chopped
• Ginger, garlic, the usual

Also have on hand and ready:

• Rice wine vinegar
• Soy sauce, and please use some type without MSG and with salt
• Sugar
• Corn starch
• Water

Heat your wok.  Add oil -- preferably peanut at this stage.  Maillard the beef; it shouldn't take long.  White sesame seeds are optional at this point but oh so tasty.  Remove and set aside.

Wipe the wok with a paper towel once it's cool enough to do so.

Add about a 50/50 blend of sesame oil and, if you can find it, Mongolian hot oil.  Vegetable time, but only go about half way through the cooking process.  Usual order; start with garlic, add ginger, add peppers, add water chestnuts.  Then bring the heat way down.

And this is where we develop the sauce.  It's pretty much to taste, but the listed ingredients will give you an idea of where to start.  Both the sugar and the corn starch will thicken, and the water is obviously there to make sure it isn't too thick.

When you're happy with the sauce, turn the heat back up a bit, add the beef, and toss in the chopped bok choy.  If you've timed it right, the rice should be about done as well.

And that's a meal.

Simple med pasta

I'm not going to claim this is Italian or French or Greek or what have you; it isn't.  But it tastes good?

Chicken

Take a few frozen chicken breasts, chunk them up (it's just easier when they're frozen) and thaw in a a marinade of olive oil, lemon juice, rosemary, and perhaps some oregano (but don't overdo that; not only will there be more later but it's easy to overdo).

Pasta

Farfalle and especially campanaelle seem especially suited to this mix, but any short, robust pasta will do.  Get your water going, salt it, etc.  Toss in your pasta.

Sauce

Maillard the chicken in a saute pan.  Add chopped garlic (obviously?), finely chopped jalapenos (technically optional), sliced red onions, chunked bell peppers (preferably red), and let that all heat through while the chicken reaches full temp.

Season with more oregano, black pepper, and some basil.  Powdered works here just fine.

Add a can of diced tomatoes, juice and all.  Let that reduce a bit; shouldn't take long.

Add chopped Greek olives (kalamata being the obvious choice), cut the heat, add the pasta, and crumble generous amounts of feta while the mixture is still warm.

Serve.  This can easily stand alone but does wonderfully with some sort of cucumber salad.

Very basic pasta

So many pasta dishes get so complicated so quickly.  This isn't one of them.

Boil water; don't forget to salt it.  It really is better that way.  Eventually add, say, angel hair or some other thin version of spaghetti.  Cook that through.

In the meantime, get to chopping.  Mostly garlic.  Lots of it.  And parsley.  Lots of it.

Add olive oil to a saute pan and lightly toast the garlic.  Once the pasta is ready, add that as well.  Once the pasta is well-coated in oil, kill the heat and add the parsley.  A little red pepper flake at this point wouldn't kill anyone.  Toss further. 

And you're done.

Grate a hard cheese over the top upon serving.

And yes, this compliments the salmon perfectly.

Basic salmon

Perfect summer dish.  Light, doesn't too much overheat the kitchen; can't go wrong.

Basic idea:

• Melt a patty of butter and add about as much olive oil in a small saute pan
• Add two salmon filets, skin up
• Finely chop a whole ton of parsley
• Juice half a lemon
• Flip the salmon to finish
• Drizzle the lemon on top and let that reduce a bit
• Add some parsley at the last minute

Serve with the rest of the lemon and parsley.  Preferably with pasta.

Arroz con pollo

So one of the major ways I've learned to cook random things is to read about a half dozen sources, integrate the knowledge, and finally try something.  That's pretty much what happened here.  Sources include Dent, Cook's Illustrated, and the interwebs.

The concept, brought up by Cook's, was to do a decent to good arroz con pollo in a single pot.  This is harder than it sounds but far from impossible.

The pot

Cast iron dutch ovens are magic.  Especially when well-seasoned.  Nothing bar nothing translates better from the stove top to the oven.

The marinade

First step is to get your chicken marinating.  This worked for me:

• Chopped garlic.  Lots.
• White wine vinegar.  Straight white vinegar ought to work.
• Dried oregano
• A bit of cumin
• Chicken, of course.  I used breasts, four of them,  because I just always use breasts....

Let all that sit for some time; probably over an hour and less than three.

Start the process

Add oil to your dutch oven, heat it, chunk up an onion, and saute.

Take the heat up and brown your marinated chicken on all sides, reserving the marinade.

To the marinade, add:

• 1 bag frozen peas.  No, seriously.
• 1 container of extra hot green chile (I happen to like Bueno; nothing tastes quite like pure hatch)

After the chicken has browned (god bless the Maillard reaction) add:

• Remaining marinade with additions
• 2 cans or one box of chicken broth
• Red pepper flakes if so desired
• 4 tomatoes, nicely chunked up
• Roughly 3 cups of rice (short or medium grain would be traditional but use what you have)

Bring that to a boil, cover it, and toss it in the oven at 350 for half an hour or so.

Pull that out, toss it up, and you've got quite the meal.  Serve with perhaps cilantro or pico de gallo.

On a bit of a more traditional note

(I swear I'll be back to stir fry very shortly.  But I was just going through records and this stood out.  And besides, it's one of those lovely Colorado spring days that feels like fall already.)

So it's Boston.  It's Christmas.  It's cold.  And there are only the two of you, and frankly you're both studying like crazy most of the time.  What do a Norwegian/Dutch atheist and a vaguely Germanic agnostic do under such circumstances?

Well, make Christmas dinner, of course.  On the menu:

• Game hens
• Roasted root vegetables
• Candied walnuts
• Fruit salad

It just makes sense, right?

Syrup

This is going to form the basis for the walnuts and the dressing for the salad.  And it takes awhile, so start it first.

In a small saucepan combine:

• A cup or so of apple cider
• One cinnamon stick
• Ground nutmeg, but not too much
• Ground clove, but again not too much as this might actually numb your mouth
• Ground allspice
• About 3/4 inch freshly grated ginger

Bring that all to a simmer and then turn it way down.  Reduce to at least half if not a bit further.  This could take a few hours but won't require constant attention by any stretch of the imagination.

Salad dressing

Combine the majority of the reduced syrup with olive oil (probably straining the syrup).  Let that cool.

Walnuts

Toss the rest of the syrup with a generous amount of walnuts.  It coats amazingly well, so just keep the nuts coming until you think you're just about to spread it too thin.  Serve this as an appetizer and/or with the main meal.

Root vegetables

I chopped up about eight medium potatoes and three leeks into roughly similar sizes and vastly different shapes.  I could see adding carrot or sweet potato (which I can't stand and would never use but each to their own).

Combine chunked up roots with generous olive oil, salt, and pepper in a roasting pan.  A larger roasting pan than you think you'll need.

Toss that in a 500 degree oven for about 45 minutes to an hour; you want to get that nice slightly shriveled thing going.

Hens

In the meantime, prep your hens.  Usual poultry stuff; take out the spine and the sweetmeats and all that.

In a food processor, grind up thyme, rosemary, and oregano.  Preferably fresh on all.  Add a touch of olive oil just to make it easier to work with.

Slather both hens, inside and out, with the mixture.

When the roots are ready, place the hens on top and use whatever is left of the herb mixture to cover some of the root veggies.  Cover the roasting pan and return to the oven (reducing the heat a bit; 350 should be fine.  Keep probing the hens until a breast hits 170 or so (and remember that since game hens are so small they won't coast for as long).  I'm guessing this took 45 minutes.

Salad

Hunk up three nectarines and an apple (fuji? granny smith?  something to offset the flavor and add crunch).  Toss that with spinach, add the dressing, toss again, and dinner is ready as soon as the meat is.  (Originally the walnuts were going in here too but they were so good on their own that we just started munching on them right away.)

This generously served two as a feast and could easily scale.  Game hens are one of those interesting items that fluctuate in price so dramatically I don't even know whether to be suspicious.  But it was a lovely and relatively low cost meal and really quite nicely eaten by candle light on the floor in the living room.

One of my best yet most failed experiments of all time

(Part 2 in a series that I consider a challenge from my cousin.)

I love pad prik khing.  There's this phenomenal place in Littleton, CO that does it just right: Wild Ginger.

The basic idea: a protein of your choice with green beans and a red sauce that could probably remove paint.  Oh, and a bit of basil for balance.

1. I would recommend going to Wild Ginger and you're a fan of Thai food if you're anywhere in the area.  The tom yum gum is also amazing even though I have a deep detest for shrimp.  And that should tell you something.
2. Do not go to Wild Basil and please do not get them confused.

So, the idea: marinate the proteins first.  In this case tofu and since I hate tofu, chicken.

Basic marinade:

• Small amount of sugar
• LOTS of sriracha sauce
• Small amount of fish sauce (no, trust me, it's good when cooked)
• A couple of spoonfulls of that nice Thai hot garlic paste; brand so far hasn't mattered

And you let that sit and talk about politics in the North Caucasus or books or movies or something for half an hour or something.  Maybe for people who have/want kids you'd rather talk about babies.

But at about that point, you want to parboil the green beans.  For god's sake, don't cook them through.  But blanch them a bit; they'll come out greener that way.

Toss said ingredients in a wok and start stir frying like mad.  Add sriracha like crazy.  Add a bit of soy just because.  Add some fresh ginger.  Add more sriracha.

And then start reducing.  Add sriracha as needed to make the consistency right.  Maybe some water might be called for as well.

Meat should be done.  Tofu should be done whatever that means.  But just leave it in.

As the sauce reduces, well, do the "logical" thing and keep adding sriracha.  A bit of cane sugar is also a nice touch.  Nothing bad could come of that, right?  Right?

Eventually, you'll have a thick sauce of tofu, chicken, some sort of sweet red sauce, and hopefully a whole ton of green beans.  Garnish with fresh basil; thai basil if you can get it, purple if you can't, and normal if you can't get that.

Maybe you should have made substantial amounts of rice as well.

I couldn't finish my chicken.  I think I lost about a gallon of water through my eyes and forehead.  My mother, the other victim/scientist, did about as well with her tofu.  Even the beans, which were absolutely awesome and at peak season, couldn't be touched (well, not true, we ate a half a pound of them).

But that, people, was a good prik khing.  And no, not pad prik khing; we did use rice.

But wow was that a meal worth remembering.

Bastardized chicken curry thing

This isn't curry.  This is barely Indian.  This is not how you make Indian food.

It is, however, simple and quite tasty.

This was stolen and modified from, I believe, Food and Wine, although good luck finding it on their god awful website.  It literally took me 80 minutes the first time -- and I knew what I was looking for.

The link to the original recipe is here (and OK, the website has improved).

But like I said, it's been modified through much trial and error.

First, a side point that will become relevant later: garam masala is a finishing spice.  It is not one of those things you toss in and let stew for hours or some such.

Basic ingredients:

• Oil of some sort; standard vegetable seems to work fine
• Yogurt. In this case any plain variety is fine but I still like full fat.
• Red onion; sliced
• Four to six jalapenos.  Red if you can get them.  Seeded if you're feeling weak; otherwise leave them in as extra capsaicin on the tongue never actually hurts.
• Chicken breasts; probably three or four to serve four or five.
• Turmeric
• Curry powder -- I think hotter is better but moderate as you will
• Garlic, and naturally the more the better; finely chopped
• Naan or pita
• Tomatoes
• Lettuce of some sort
• Garam masala

Slice the chicken into something like 1/8 inch strips and toss those in a bowl.  Cover in yogurt and add sliced jpeps if you dare along with the curry powder and turmeric until the whole thing is nice and yellow and spicy.  Let that sit for a bit; at least until you're done with the rest of the recipe and preferably up to an hour.

Slice tomatoes to taste and chop the lettuce.

Slice the onion; heat the oil.  Sweat them a bit until just barely translucent.

Toss in the chicken mixture with the onions.  And keep tossing.  And tossing.  Otherwise the yogurt will separate.  This should simmer down nicely.

Drop the heat.  This is kind of important.

Start with your chosen bread.  Either toast the pita or tell whatever the naan package tells you to do.

Add more yogurt and garam masala to taste; both will sour the mixture but in a good way.

Serve the chicken/onion/yogurt thing with the tomatoes and lettuce plus the bread.  Really can't go wrong on this one though I really wouldn't call it Indian food.  Either stuff the pita or do the more traditional thing and just scoop ingredients from the plate.  In fact, this wouldn't go wrong with the Ethiopian method of serving everything on a platter and letting everyone scoop from there.

Very basic stir fry side dish

(Part 1 in a series that I consider a challenge from my cousin.) 

As stated, very basic.

• Snow peas, ends snapped as needed.  About a pound.
• Half a red pepper, finely cubed
• Garlic to taste, chopped finely
• Sesame oil, but not too much

Heat the oil.

Toast the peppers slightly.  Add garlic, but don't over-sear it.  Add snow peas.

If you're in the mood, grate some ginger and add that with the garlic but it really isn't needed.

Serve as is, preferably in a black bowl.

Doesn't get simpler than that.

Fried chicken

I have absolutely nothing to add to this.  Have fun.