Jokes aside…I quickly forgot about it until it showed up on the dinner table again. (Mind you, this was during the void that was high school, when I pretty much went to school, came home to do homework, showed my face at dinner, then went back upstairs to do more homework. Those were dark days…) From there, I started requesting it, and when I shipped off to college, I asked my mom for the recipe, being more than a little homesick for home-cooked meals. Since then, it’s actually become one of my go-to “special” meals at school (read: anything that’s not salad or a reheated container of something my grandma sent me back to school with after a weekend visit), because not only is it easy to get cheap fillets of mild fish like tilapia, but the recipe is so simple that I can kind of just turn my brain off after a tiring day and have food on the table in about 30 minutes (not to sound too Rachel Ray-like, but hey! ‘Tis true.) You can use pretty much any kind of fish you have on hand. It’s easiest if they’re already filleted, though. I made it at home recently for the blog. Here’s the recipe, just like ma used to make.
Recipe Instructions
In a bowl, add your tilapia pieces, soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, sesame oil, cornstarch, and a couple pinches of white pepper. Stir it together and set it aside to marinate while you’re chopping up the veg.
Take your soaked wood ear mushrooms and drain them.
Chop them roughly and cut the bell peppers and long hot green pepper into chunks…
Slice the onion…
Slice the scallions…it’s nice when you do it on a bit of a diagonal. It’ll make ya feel fancy.
Then chop the garlic and peel/slice the ginger. A good way to peel ginger is to just scrape it with a spoon.
Once everything is prepared, put 3 tablespoons oil in a wok over medium heat. Fry the ginger for 1 minute. Here’s when you’re getting all the great flavor out into the oil.
Then add the garlic and fry for another minute.
Add your sliced onion and stir-fry for another 2-3 minutes, cranking up the heat to medium-high.
Add both peppers and stir-fry another minute.
Turn the heat up to high and add the wood ears. Keep stirring for another 2 minutes.
Add the tilapia to the wok in one layer over the vegetables.
Add 1/3 cup water and cover the pan. Reduce the heat to medium low and steam the veggies and fish for 5-6 minutes, until the fish just turns opaque.
Uncover the wok and crank the heat up to high again. Add the scallion and gently toss and stir everything together for another 2 minutes.
Plate and serve this healthy tilapia and mixed vegetable stir-fry!
Here’s the printable version:
