On stir-fry and a guiltless plug for the Allman Brothers

I spent a lot of time (way to much time) of my Christmas break watching cooking shows. Why you might ask? Well, the only way I could be watching a cooking show on TV is if its daytime (you almost never see cooking shows in primetime) and I'm not thinking about or doing work. This introduction is going no where, so lets get to the point.

Anyway, one of the tips I saw on the cooking show was to coat your stir-fry meats in a small amount of corn starch before you subject them to the hot pan. I'd heard this from a couple of different places, but I tried it for the first time today with a chicken-onions stir-fry.

I made a simple marinade out of the corn starch, pepper, a pinch of garlic salt, and a dash of soy sauce. Then I rubbed the chicken cubes in the sauce until it was all soaked up before throwing them into my hot oil and garlic. The light starching makes the outside of the meat get a lot of color from the pan and it also keeps the juices in the meat much better. It made all the difference in the world and I'm definitely going to do it again. I've made that recipe for ages without marinating the chicken in the starch mixture and things were way more delicious this time. For a small amount of effort the benefit was huge.

I got another Allman Brothers album today and wow, they are a fantastic band. If you like blues-rock, you gotta listen to them. Of course, there really is no good excuse for not liking blues-rock because it is up there with Latin-jazz as a genera of music that anyone with ears enjoys. It really doesn't get any better than the blues.