Cashew Chicken. 2nd Cook From The Sky's Edge

Mattman3969

Chicken breast slice thin marinated in soy,rice wine,garlic & cornstarch.  Veggies were thin sliced carrots,celery, cashews and sugar snap peas. Sauce was chicken stock,rice wine.soy and cornstarch. 

On the small which is settled in at 600°.  Chicken and ginger getting happy


Chicken out & veggies in 


And plated with basmati rice. 


The taste was good but the crazy fresh taste I generally get from stir fries wasn't there.  My thoughts on this are that I either had a wok that was too big for the small even with the 1" or so air gap all the way around between the base and the wok or I wasn't creating enough heat to actually stir fry but instead was sautéing.  I did notice that the food was taking way longer to cook vs cooking on the large.  I filled the lump up to the top of the fire ring (so the heat was right on the wok) and had my wok on the grate at OEM level and the egg had been sitting at 600 for 30mins.  Don't know what the difference was but I do know I will wok on the large from here on out.  Unless I get a wok for the mini. LOL.   

jeffwit

Looks good. I think you need a wok for the mini. You know, for scientific purposes and all...

theyolksonyou

Well, it looks good. Prolly should buy a new diamond shaped wok. 

Mattman3969

If you find one I'll buy it!!   May need a diamond shaped egg to make it work correctly!

SciAggie

It looks good to me friend. Isn't it interesting how small changes make big differences? I'm starting to believe what the thermometer says isn't necessarily a big thing (for stir fry). What I mean is for stir fry we need a bed of good coals with a lot of thermal mass for a high BTU output. Then we can get the kind of stir fry that has that "wok hay" thing going on. I'm itching to make another stir fry from looking at this. 

blind99

Dang that looks fantastic. I love stir fry but so far have been happy to leave it to the Chinese restaurants.... Seems like a lot to juggle all at once!

Mattman3969

SciAggie said:

It looks good to me friend. Isn't it interesting how small changes make big differences? I'm starting to believe what the thermometer says isn't necessarily a big thing (for stir fry). What I mean is for stir fry we need a bed of good coals with a lot of thermal mass for a high BTU output. Then we can get the kind of stir fry that has that "wok hay" thing going on. I'm itching to make another stir fry from looking at this. 

I think you nailed it with the bed of coals.  Even tho I had the small was hotter than I normally stir fry it just didn't seem like the wok had as quick of a recovery time after the food was added.  

I I think I remember  VI  running into the same thing trying to stir fry on smaller egg. But I could be dreaming it too. Idk 

SciAggie

@Mattman3969 Isn't it fun playing though and trying to figure it out?

Botch

A 1" gap around the perimeter of a Small has a LOT more area than the intake on the Small, so that shouldn't have been the problem.  

Mattman3969

It's very interesting how the little changes effect the cook, frustrating when your eating it and asking yourself WTH did I do wrong,fun trying to figure it out and anxious when you try it again.