Stir-Fired Cucumber & Pork with Golden Garlic

jfm0830

The latest edition of Big Green Egg Lifestyle magazine  had a feature on Grace Young, who is the author of several of the wok cookbooks I own. These books were recommended to me by the good folks here on this board. It seems Grace Young has become a fan of the BGE for Wok cooking. The recipe she shared was an adaptation of this recipe form her excellent Stir Frying to the Sky's Edge cookbook. The adaptations were to suit using the BGE. The first adaptation was a tad silly if you ask me. They recommended using a 14" flat bottom wok or the BGE paella pan. Grace Young wrote about woks extensively in her book and she feels the traditional round bottom wok is the best way to go. The others can be used, but a round bottom wok is the first choice. This was never mentioned in this recipe.

The other adaptation was changing the recipe to suit the BGE. It was slightly different than the method I had stumbled my way onto. The Egg is stabilized at the temperature you want to use, 600 degrees in this case. I don't use the top DFMC and get stabilized via the bottom damper only/ When you add the wok you keep the lid open the rest of the time. They recommend shutting the lower draft door completely. I used to shut the lower draft door down to 50 percent of my previous setting. I tried it there way yesterday, but I also took temperature readings of the wok with an infra red thermometer. I was concerned because it was wicked windy yesterday and this recipe was actually two wok cooks with the wok cleaned out between the two sessions. I was concerned about maintaining temps during this longer than normal cook. I didn't want temps dropping to much due to the weather or running away due to the open lid. It turned out the completely closed lower damper worked ok for the first portion of the cook. When I came back out with my freshly washed wok I found it was only coming up to 560. So I opened the lower damper about 1/8" and quickly got my 600 degrees.

After thinking about this I think we may have both been right. For normal 70 degree or hotter calm weather closing the lower damper completely is probably the right answer. I was doing my cooking at -3 degrees to 20 degrees or so in the dead of winter and for that 50 percent of my lid closed setting was the way to go. Yesterday was 60's and windy and I had to crack it open 1/8". Moving forward I will simply bring my infrared thermo out with me and double check my wok temps. A great meal and a BGE lesson in one session was a fun way to end the weekend. Onto the pix.

The ingredients are gathered: English cucumbers cut on the diagonal 1/4"  thick, soy sauce, water, smashed ginger, salt, sugar, cornstarch, pork shoulder meat cut into 1/4" thick pieces, peanut oil and chopped garlic.

The meat is coated with soy sauce, salt, sugar and cornstarch.

The wok is on the Egg which was stabilized at 600 degrees with the lid down using the lower damper only. 

When the wok was to temperature the 1/2 cup of peanut oil and 3 tbsp. of garlic were added. The garlic was cooked for under a minute until it was a golden brown. 

The garlic quickly began to brown, this is about 15 seconds in.

The wok was removed from the heat and the oil and garlic were poured through a strainer. Both the peanut oil, now infused with garlic flavor, and the garlic was retained. The garlic now had a crispy outer skin. Two tablespoons of the oil were used to start the second part of the cook in a freshly cleaned and dried wok.

After the wok was back at temperature 2 tbsp of the reserved peanut oil were added to the wok and the ginger slices were cooked for about 30 seconds and pushed up the sides of the wok to stop it cooking fast.  The pork. slices were added and spread into a single layer and cooked as it for 1 minute. 

The pork was then stir-fried for another minute. 

The cucumber slices were added and stirred for about 30 seconds to combine with the pork.

Some salt and some soy sauce which had been diluted with water were added and everything was stir-fried for a minute or so to finish cooking the pork.

Everything is done.

This was an excellent dish. I am not a cucumber fan normally, but the seedless English cucumbers had a nice flavor when coated with the sauce from this stir-fry. I was shocked how tender the pork was and it had great flavor on the surface too. The garlic and ginger add some great flavor and the ginger added some extra spice. Those of you who think this recipe looks interesting can find a copy of it in the 4/14 edition of The Big Green Egg Lifestyle magazine on page 30. There is a digital version of this available in the publications area on the Big Green Egg website. 

Jim

Also for those of you (like me) who don't know what is meant by the term "smashed ginger" it was explained in Stir Frying to the Sky's Edge. This recipe calls for 8 slices. Cut off just under an inch of ginger and peel it. Cut it into 8 slices under 1/8" thick. Take the blade of your chefs knife and put it on the garlic up near the handle end of the blade. Hold the handle of the knife with one hand and use your other hand to smack the blade of the knife. The ginger should crack but not break apart. Be careful of the knife blade while doing this.  I actually used the flat side of my meat pounder to accomplish the same thing. I don't like hitting my knives and I don't like smacking sharp things. Your mileage may vary.

Chris_Wang

Outstanding! =D>

NDG

Great cook.  I like the fact this only has a few main ingredients because I often times get carried away and over crowd my Wok (steams foods rather than true stir-fry).  I have two of Grace Youngs books now from the library, but have yet to try anything.  Maybe I will later tonight!  Nice cook.

jfm0830

Thanks guys.

@NDG‌ there are some great recipes to be found in her cookbooks. Also be sure to look in some of the included how to sections. Such as descriptions of the proper way to prepare garlic and ginger and scallions for all of different cuts called for in various stir-fry recipes. For example: yesterday I did not know what was meant by crushed ginger. But in the section on preparing Ginger there was a good description and some illustrations. There's also some great information on choosing a wok and seasoning your wok.

I agree with what you say about overcrowding your wok. The recipes in her books are sized for a particular size wok. When I bought my wok for my large, I chose a 16 which was the biggest wok I could get for it. So far I've been able to cook everything I need or want to, without overcrowding. Definitely try out some of Grace Young's Recipes, you won't be disappointed.

Jim

Botch

I stir-fry a lot, but have never tried cukes.  Thanks for the idea!  

J_Que

Always love your posts. So much so that you inspired me to pick up my own wok about a year back. I'm going to have to pull it out this week and try one of your cooks.

caliking

Excellent! I've never stir-fried cukes before, so i would like to try something like this.

jfm0830

Thanks for the additional comments guys. @J_Que‌ I am glad the pictures of some of the things I made with my wok helped make you want to buy a wok. But any of the things I've posted here are not my own creations. So kudos to the actual creators of the recipes-the cookbook authors.

@caliking‌ if you want to THAT EXACT recipe, go to the BGE home page, click on the "Publications" link under the masthead. The recipe is in the latest BGE Lifestyle Magazine 04/14 on Page 30. Your BGE dealer probably has a physical copy of the magazine.

Mickey

Very nice post and cook