Turn up the heat

As yesterday's blog was almost completed, I had a brainwave for another exercise that will help you practice making things up as you go along. This recipe has a few more elements and stages but is still super easy and, very importantly, extremely forgiving so it's hard to cock it up. And if you're reading this, Aaqib, there are some good hints for you too.   Today's recipe suggestion is for a stir fry. I'm not going to be more specific at this stage because the point of this exercise is for you to put of much of your imagination into it as possible and also to give you the opportunity to do this recipe many different ways. For example, most people will think of Chinese food when they think of stir fry but there are many other varieties. And even if you do make a Chinese stir fry, that can still mean a myriad possibilities. But enough talk, let's get on with the show.   What makes stir fries stand out is that making them means spending the early part of the process doing the prep followed by a burst of cooking at the end. I'd better point out that while most recipes can be cooked that way, most of the time it is more time efficient to do enough prep to start cooking then continue doing prep all the way along. Stir fries need all the prep done first as the cooking often is done very quickly. To illustrate this, I've included a video of someone stir frying.   King of Stir Fry Gobi Noodles or Aloo Chilly, anyone?    To find this video, I watched a lot of wok jockeys doing their thing and for a geek like me that was a lot of fun and extremely fascinating. I chose this video because you can see that as well as being very messy, he's surrounded by all the elements he needs to cook anything from for the whole (and very entertaining) menu. If you want to get a better idea of the possibilities there are LOADS of other videos but my guess is you'd be just as likely to watch endless videos of drying paint. Your loss.   I want you to notice how quickly each dish takes. He turns out four in a shade over eight minutes and the only way he can do that is because he's surrounded by all the ready prepped ingredients and he's cooking over the sort of heat you'd expect to have if you were cooking over an F-16's afterburner. (I want one in my kitchen, please). Tomorrow you'll find more hints to help you on your way. I hope you'll give this little challenge a go as the results can be delicious and stir frying is a really useful string to have in your bow. Kirk out RevoltingFood.com