Skillet Stir-Fry with Potstickers and Spring Rolls

Tuesday, January 28

Cast-Iron Stir-Fry with Potstickers and Spring Rolls

Rating: 4.25

It was Snowpacalypse here in Atlanta, and for some reason, I had not planned a soup or stew for dinner. I’m not sure what I was thinking, because snow was predicted for Tuesday when I did my meal planning over the weekend. Thankfully, Seth was not one of the thousands of people trapped on the highway coming home from work, and I was already at home anyway, although I did make an emergency run to the grocery store. No, not for bread and (almond) milk. I went out (on foot – dog bless our walking neighborhood) for Chinese mustard, Sriracha and beer. You know, the necessities. Anyway, I’ve always just kind of winged it with stir-fries. They just seem to me to be something that should not require a recipe. My method has been to marinate the tofu, and then use the leftover marinade as a stir-fry sauce, which is good, but I figured, why not try a recipe for once? Since we love Isa Does It so much, I chose the Cast-Iron Stir-fry recipe. It’s pretty basic – tofu, broccoli, bell peppers, onion – and the sauce is quite good (I’d actually made just the sauce from this recipe for one of my non-recipe stir-fries once). The only thing I changed was that instead of cooking the tofu as the recipe instructs, I marinated it first. We just prefer our tofu with more flavor. For the marinade, I just mixed together some tamari, mirin, rice vinegar, sriracha, ginger and garlic and then let the cubed tofu soak it up for several hours. The best way to do this, I think, is to press and cube the tofu in the morning and put it in the marinade before work. When you get home, voila, perfectly marinated tofu. I skillet-fried it and set it aside, and then followed the rest of the recipe instructions for the remaining components. It was very easy and, as with most stir-fries, it was fast work. I ended up using the wok for the sauce and for combining all of the veggies and tofu in it because there just wasn’t room enough in my skillet for all of it. I may not use a recipe every time I make a stir-fry from now on, but this one is really good if you’re looking for one. (Although, I left off the garnishes - I'm not that crazy about avocado and it sounds weird to me.) We served it over basmati rice, along with some spring rolls and potstickers from the freezer aisle. I made some dipping sauces for the potstickers, which were pretty good. Our favorite was a scallion-ginger sauce from the Salt & Pepper Tofu recipe in Color Me Vegan.